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A jam submission

PhonyView game page

Waiting for someone to come home. For now, kill time on a phone.
Submitted by CorvidAsh (@CorvidAsh)
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Play text adventure

Phony's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Most Compelling Narrative#14.3334.333
Best Use of Ludonarrative#13.6673.667
Best Use of the (optional) Theme#14.8334.833
Overall#14.0834.083
Most Compelling Character#43.5003.500

Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

Some feedback:

Good variables that influence the dialogues.

I liked the possibilities of exploring the phone.

Some funny photos.

I would have liked there to be a misunderstanding about the identity of the Other. He could have been the after-sales service manager of a furniture store!

Developer

Thank you for commenting! Your idea would make an excellent next scene I think. It's not explicitly said that there was any infidelity, so that would subvert expectations.

Submitted

This was a good mystery. Great use of the time-based-theme. I'm kind of mad that I didn't have the opportunity to summon an entity to eat the significant other though :-(

Developer(+1)

That could be a possible next scene! Maybe if you got the ending where you storm off, you could head to a better location to summon a hungry beast? Now that kind of a story could take some interesting turns...

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I loved it hahaha!One of the endings (don't want to say for spoilers)  really brought out some appropriate and real emotion in me. I also laughed when there were hidden photos in the gallery.

The timer worked really well, I was drawn into being like fuck I need to find out everything before I don't get a chance anymore hahaha.  I also enjoyed the use of pictures and scrolling. 

My only tiny criticism was I didn't like the narrative of the very first page, I wasn't drawn by it... The ensuing narrative was excellent though so that kept me.

Developer

I was hoping the timer would cause a bit of rushing for at least the first playthrough, and I'm relieved that the hidden photos album joke landed! Thank you for seeing the project through to the end, and also for the feedback :D

Submitted(+1)

This oddly reminds me of more existential, cosmic horror; as I learned more and more about the situation, I started to dread the end of that countdown more and more. You did a great job making me really want to examine everything in the room and making me pay close attention to details as I started to make connections. The whole narrative largely comes together in one's head, and I think that's really cool. 

The timer is a super cool feature that also pushed this sense of dread and anxiety... but I have to be honest and say that the constant ticking was very distracting. It's good as a reminder that I am on a time limit, though. Of course, the timer is also a really interesting application of the theme! 

Good work. This one's an easy favorite for me. 

Submitted

I thought about the 'cosmic horror' angle myself. Had I written this, I suspect it would have had a totally different type of ending... O:-)
(You know, eldritch horrors emerging from the walls and someone getting sacrificed to them etc)

Developer

I am so flattered! Thank you for the kind words :D

While I was playtesting, I had to turn the volume off after a few playthroughs. I agree it's annoying as hell and a bit too loud, and if I'm not the only one to think that then it might be worth switching to a more subtle ticking sound for the post-jam update.

Submitted(+1)

This had plenty of nice touches - the phone screen pictures, the countdown sound effect, the cat... The way you have the player slowly piece together what's going on is really well-done. You've given just enough info on the context, setting and backstory for the player to feel grounded in the plot. And you really feel bad for the protagonist no matter what happens. Wonderful job.

A couple of bugs I found: Some of the links pulse in time with the countdown (perhaps to highlight their importance, lol), and when restarting the game some of the links show text that suggests you're clicking on that option a second time (e.g. the one about unpacking the boxes), and there's also other links that seem like they're showing up early, or text that isn't exactly the same as the very first time you play the game. If you're using the Harlowe story format, I'd suggest using the (restart:) macro for your Play Again link to reset all variables and visits while taking you back to the beginning.

Played through it a few times to get all the endings. I enjoyed it a lot! I'm glad you were able to submit this!

Developer(+1)

I really appreciate the feedback!

I haven't yet checked, but I believe some of those issues would be due to the variables not resetting, so thank you for letting me know about the restart macro. As for the blinking links... that was not intentional. Hopefully a solution to that comes to me while I'm no longer under a time crunch hah