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Existence: A Short Story's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Music/Sound | #42 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Overall | #68 | 3.467 | 3.467 |
| Graphics/Animation | #70 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Theme/Limitation | #78 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Fun/Design | #90 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
| Technical Implementation | #101 | 3.208 | 3.208 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game apply the limitation (and optionally, the theme)?
Story, the protagonist is currently on the edge of life and death fighting for a chance to make amends
Team Size
Solo (1)
What main engine/tool/language did you use to construct the game?
Unity
Which diversifiers did you use, if any?
By the Hand
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Comments
did not understand how i got out of the forest. two up for north, one down for east, but which way did i even want to go? almost quit, but glad i didn't. cool to see a few different environments. i liked the heart shield and egg bomb. the aesthetic never really seemed to be that coherent and some better art/effects would have added a lot. the writing was interesting and weird, i kinda was just skipping through it, like i do with most games, but then at the end i paid attention some :)
Well I hope you enjoyed it in the long run, Thanks for playing. :)
That was a lot of game! It was a pleasure to play through! Super impressed with the effect of the candle lights and shadows! It felt so natural that it took a while for me to see it and appreciate it. I also really enjoyed the main character's animation.
The bosses were cool, and I loved that the first 2 gave you an ability based on their abilities. That was such a great way to tie everything together. I was a little disappointed that the last boss was a 1 hit KO, I died both times and wish I had more of an opportunity to face off against that boss.
Don't really have thoughts difficulty-wise since it seems you can't die or run out of time (except in that final boss), but what was there was enjoyable!
thank you for playing and for the kind words. Glad you enjoyed the experience. And yeah, I kinda missed the mark on the balance for the last boss, but I also didn't want to give an infinite number of retries either.
Loved the theme, loved the idea of gaining abilities that become your vechicle of moving on (in the game and as a character in your life), the graphics were very cool as well. The battles needed a bit more polishing, but overall I liked the game, great storytelling!
Question, is there way you can win the final boss and have a different ending?
there is. You can use the guard to block his attack.
Thank you playing and for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed it.
I really like the sound effects, the walking sound is oddly satisfying, the writing hints of something misterious and philosophical .... got lost in the woods tho, 2 north, one east, was that the way I should go?
2 north. Then run west, then south, then east. Yeah, your not the only one, I think I'd reword that riddle if I redid the game.
wonderful game! please keep me in the loop if you want to build on this game
Thank you for playing and all the feedback on your stream. :) And Thank you for the kind words.
The animation and overall design on the player character ... especially at such a high-pixel count ... incredibly well done. Moving around was a joy. And you put that same attention and love into a bunch of little details throughout this experience.
I like that you combined your narrative with the tutorial so as a player I was learning about the gameplay while becoming more invested in my motivation.
As a solo dev jam entry, heck as an entry period, really well done! I enjoyed it very much. Great work and thanks for joining the jam.
thanks for playing and for the really nice comments. Much appreciated. Hope you enjoyed the story and my game. :)
That was certainly quite the experience. I noticed that there was a light system - quite the detail for a jam game. Unfortunately, I did have a couple of issues:
The game wouldn’t start up immediately, though fortunately it was just a matter of time (though this did happen both in Chrome and in Edge. Perhaps it’s a problem with windows?).
I got stuck in the woods, and didn’t realize that the solution was to interact with thin air (I figured the icon was meant to be some sort of radar) - maybe you could’ve had the player pick up a book or something to help trigger that memory?
Also I managed to get negative time during the second area’s boss fight, and I don’t think you can take damage there (thank god, bullets everywhere + low visibility is just a nightmare, and since the timer didn’t change upon leaving the maze I don’t think there was a checkpoint. I like the idea of a boss with a timer, but not the idea of redoing a maze).
thanks for playing. I appreciate the comments. You're not the only to have issues in the forest, if I were to do it again, I'd redesign it, I was trying to make the player really feel lost by making them feel like they didn't know what they were doing, and a lot of people really over thought the riddle.
And yes. Both the timer and getting hit don't impact the game(at least until the last level), and it was a design choice as I felt like that hurt the experience in the end, but the systems are still there to try and get you to feel pressure.
Overall, I hope you enjoyed the experience and story of the game. And thank you for the feedback. :)
The start to this game is a great introduction to its story and vibe. Kudos on that.
Also, the little touches were nice.. like the sound effect of the dialogue boxes and the zoom out for the battles.
Well done.
Thank you for playing. Hoped you enjoyed playing. And I'm glad you liked feel of the game.
That was a fun journey into your psyche, the story was definitely the highlight. I liked how the abilities culminated at the end to kill death, though I was hoping for some more phases for each boss. Awesome job though, I'm excited to see more. The character's movement animation was super smooth looking by the way. Thanks for making it :)
thanks for playing. Glad you enjoyed the experience. :) I was definitely going for a more narrative driven experience in this game. I did have plans to further flesh out the boss fights and have a whole other level in between the 2nd and 3rd, but you know how it can get in jams. Lol
Neat little experience, really enjoyed it :)
Thank you for playing!
A great little adventure game for a solo dev, congrats. The sound design (and feedback in general) does leave something to be desired, but I was able to stick through it to the end, so maybe that doesn't matter.
More specifically, the sound mixing is completely all over the place - the boss music is barely audible, for example. The "explosion" sound for the carrot bombs are weirdly cut. But that's just my two cents.
thanks for playing. Were you using headphones or speakers when you played? You're not the only that had that audio problem and I wanna try to narrow down what the problem might be.
Oh, I was wearing earbuds. Could be a weird phasing issue. Other comments are complimenting the music, so it might be a me problem.
Just wish I could narrow down when and how its happening, note to self, include sound slider in all future projects. Thanks for playing!
It's well made, but I couldn't figure out how to get past the forest. I just kept going in random directions and I didn't know what to do there.
there's an interactable hint that pops up in the middle of the forest that basically tells you how to move. But thanks for playing.
Awesome job! Music kicked butt as well! Loved the shredding guitars on the bosses!
Give mine a try if you get some time https://itch.io/jam/vimjam2/rate/1200495
Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed the music.
Perfect GameDesign, the feeling that's you want to send it's perfect! Perfect !
Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it! :)
Very well made! I like the art style
Thanks for playing, hope you enjoyed the experience.