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Hi Mommy's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #4 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Presentation | #5 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Story | #5 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Theme | #7 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Overall | #7 | 3.639 | 3.639 |
| Creativity | #11 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Horror | #14 | 2.667 | 2.667 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How did you choose to implement the Theme: Dreadful Nightmare in your game?
The game is about a dream had by the protagonist of the game, Saki, during her hospital stay.
Did you implement any of the optional Bonus Challenges, and if so, which ones?
Yes; I implemented no. 1 (False Hope) and no. 3 (Descent Into Horror). The dream started out as a cheerful platformer, and later there will be a false exit.
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Comments
Hey,
I absolutely love this game!
The graphics are really adorable!
The first time the evil alter ego showed up was spooky, it's really well done how the doll ran off.
The music and sounds were really nice too!
I gathered the 60 diamonds to be able to take the emergency exit!
No spoilers, but I loved the ending!
(Only thing I'd improve is the diamond room. Since you chain all the glass breaking animations, it seems to lag. I would maybe change how the loop that you use, so that it does not lag.
And possibly I would make it so that the character accelerates faster, because the controls are a bit hard. I mean I got used to it eventually! ;)
But I guess stuff like that is normal in a jam game where you have a tight deadline ;) )
In any case really well done! Congratulations, I actually enjoyed your game!
Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed what I made.
I have received similar feedback regarding the lag in the incubator room; but I'm not sure if there are anything that I could've done better for that room. For the record I used Godot engine's Animation Player for that; best I can do is check if there are inefficient functions that I ran but I doubt that.
Thank you for playing!
P.S. Did you spot the ghost during the "normal" section? She can be spotted for a very, very brief moment on the world right after you met the first terminal/computer and fan (check out the screenshots)
Regarding the lag:
how did you use Godot's engine's animation for the animation?
Did you tell it to animate all at once?
Or once one breaking animation is finished, it moves to the next?
Or did you create a timer that starts one animation after the other?
Did you loop through each breaking object?
My suspicion is that somewhere you're repeatedly and continuously looping through every breaking object, to check when to start the animation.
It's usually these loops through all items of object groups that cause lags like that from my experience.
Well when I said:
"The first time the evil alter ego showed up was spooky, it's really well done how the doll ran off."
I was talking about when I saw the evil doll for the first time quickly appear and then run off to the right out of the screen.
I found it spooky and well done.
So if that's what you mean I guess I saw it?
Well and thank you for making the game ;)
Regarding my animation, I used animation player node. Every single incubator destruction involves calling a function from each of the incubator, which plays an individual animation player from the incubator -- I had to do this mainly because of the sound during the incubator exploding sequence and the particle they emit... so to describe it simply it's 1 animation player calling for 40 other smaller animation players to play their animation. Darn now that I put it like this I just realized darn yeah this is probably extremely inefficient :O
And then regarding the ghost appearance... lemme tell you that the scene you described is not the first time the ghost appeared. The ghost actually also appeared during the "normal, cheeful" section once although just for 0.5s (again, check the screenshots that can be seen in this page) :3
It's interesting, but I didn't understand anything at the end
There is no need to read too much into it. It's just a simple story of a nightmare about a ghost killing the protagonist in the bad dream.
I thought there was something more there((
It would've been nice if WASD and Space/Enter were options, as well as the ability to resize the screen. The auto text was sudden and I ended up missing the first bit. I felt "crowded" by the bottom of the screen and ended up holding the down arrow to counteract this.
The platforming was solid; the movement speed and jumps felt "right." Finding out that you can "look" down when you first drop down from a platform was a good way to teach the player a mechanic. The level design was well-made, except for how you can bypass the second screen and continue straight to the third. I enjoyed the puzzle, but it felt out of place. The flashlight felt like an unnecessary addition that didn't add much to the game because you could easily see without it. They both felt like "padding."
I tested what would happen if I didn't take the flashlight. It's good that you took this into account, but the "barrier" was artificial. In comparison, a later barrier in which you need to get gems to continue (organically forcing you to go to the "gem room") was done better because the barrier itself was part of the game. Instead of telling the player "no, you can't go this way because I said so," you were telling the player "you can go this way, but you need to use this elevator which is activated by gems."
Despite having few words, the story was well-presented, but I didn't like how abrupt the ending was. It felt like the game was telling me "okthatsitbye." Both the art and music were well done -- I loved the cute art style! The only criticism I have there is the music choice for the puzzle. It felt like I was on a time limit, but when the music ended, nothing happened. Using intense music while nothing is happening leaves the player feeling fooled, and they may not trust later intense music, both of which can detract from their experience.
The game fits the theme; I interpreted it as the character's nightmare caused by their experiences. The horror was decent, especially for a first attempt. It had some scary parts, and the "psychological horror" atmosphere can be unsettling. It made use of Descent into Horror; I forgot I was playing a horror game until the music stopped and the environment changed, creating a creepy atmosphere. The game also had False Hope, which the music contributed to. An earlier part of the game, although not false hope, gave a similar feeling. The elevator tricks the player into thinking they'll be able to return, but when you drop down, the "escape" is taken away. I also feel that "The Dream is Changing" applies because the environment changes as you progress through the game.
Overall an enjoyable game with solid gameplay.
Thanks for the feedback! Now I understand a few issues the game had, most because I had to rush some features (because another game jam was starting 1 week before the end of the jam so my time limit was 1wk shorter), although others because I didn't consider it necessary.
I will keep WSAD control in mind; I previously played games with primarily arrow keys control and so I didn't think WSAD was necessary in this game. Auto-text was probably indeed not really the best choice to implement but unfortunately it was the only one I could go with with the limited time I had -- all I can do is apologize (^.^;
The decision to add the flashlight was for what I thought would be atmospheric reasons; since I saw many horror games have very dark environment and usually in those games I saw flashlights; though again this is my first time ever making a horror game. I didn't put as many lamps in the following rooms after the flashlight so I thought it would be difficult to see without it but perhaps it's not the case for you.
I will keep your feedback about artificial barrier in mind; I definitely also got similar complaints from my testers.
Glad you liked the artstyle and the music. Regarding the puzzle with intense music (and yellowing screen to represent toxic gas) I definitely DID intend to make it a game over; but in the end as deadline was approaching I had to settle for not giving a game over screen and instead pretend "Hey it's just a dream turns out this puzzle is not as deadly as I thought" m(_ _)m
I definitely do not have enough writing experience indeed, hence the rushed ending. Even after you gave your feedback I must admit I am not sure how I could've presented the ending better hahaha
I'm glad you enjoyed my interpretation of the themes and found it good enough to be a horror game. Definitely glad you enjoyed my decision to turn off the elevator during the earlier part just before the start of the horror section -- I remember many horror stories involve the helpless protagonist unexpectedly getting thrown into situations they cannot easily escape. Definitely also very glad you find the atmosphere to be unsettling enough for a horror game; I took some inspirations from the game "Purgatory" -- and although it's definitely nowhere near as horrifying as that game looks like it's horrific enough.
Thanks for your helpful feedbacks. I will keep these in mind for my future projects :3
I completely understand having to rush and not being able to add things you want! Me and my friend's game suffered from that greatly since we didn't start until the third week in. And honestly, I'm not sure how you could have ended it better, either. Maybe with a short sequence of the character waking up, and a little more story dialogue? And yes, this is definitely horror! I view horror as more of a "theme" than how scary it is, since whether someone is scared or not is completely objective. I, for example, am not phased by psychological horror at all, but it's all still horror. So yeah, the themes in this game, atmosphere, and events that happen 100% make it horror. I hope that makes sense! ^^
this is normal game
Yeah as I said in the description I have zero prior experience making a horror game. Apologies for not meeting your expectations; all I can say is that I did get some to recognize it as mildly horror at least.
This was a cool 2D horror game exploring a nightmare that Ms. Saki had. The game appears to be similar to Mario at first, where the main character has to jump around in a green, purple island to obtain crystals but as the game continues, everything starts to turn dark and (I am unsure if I am right or not but) the crystals that Ms. Saki appears to be collecting, appears to be little fetuses which is really horrifying yet cool at the same time. The ending of the game was definitely saddening but it does suit the theme of horror very well XD.