Play game
Super Maze (PROTOTYPE)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Most Compelling Narrative | #3 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Best Use of the (optional) Theme | #4 | 2.750 | 2.750 |
| Best Use of Ludonarrative | #5 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Most Compelling Character | #6 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #6 | 3.188 | 3.188 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
So! I was very confused for my first... uh, maybe five playthroughs, because I had no idea what actual narrative was happening. After zooming my screen out a little, however, I noticed that I was missing a part of the top message for that final bit... and then things made a little more sense.
There are some pretty interesting ideas in here! I like how so little of the text in the game is explicitly narrative text. There's still text there, but it's not doing as much of the story telling as it would be otherwise since there's so little that it tells you. It feels like a strange twist on the whole "no text/>150 words" restriction, and I dig it.
As for the plot, though I was super confused at first, it's a really interesting idea. Those ominous headlines having strange and unsettling noise accompany them as the game dev tells you that there's nothing to worry about is a classic case of the 'ol unreliable narrator, and I like me some unreliable narrators. Then it's revealed that said narrator is one of the devs at 1-2-Studio controlling that Roland fellow that those messages were talking about... who may or may not be behind those concerning events alluded to before. Then that teleporting message kicks in at the end and... ooooooooooooohhhhh that's what's going on okay
Yes, I came to understand the story as I wrote this.
I admire how boldly strange and mysterious this game is! Figuring out the story of it is almost like a puzzle, which is super interesting. I dig it.
World's most delayed anagnorisis, LOL.
Thanks for the feedback! I've been wondering whether or not it was a good thing that the game takes multiple playthroughs to understand, so I'm glad to have someone chime in on the matter. It was a pleasant surprise for me to discover during development that I could incorpirate an unreliable narrator. I'm not sure if the slightly hidden text is just your screen/monitor setup or an actual bug; I was able to read the final message in its entirety both in and out of fullscreen.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! (And understood it... eventually.)
I think it was just a thing with my computer and the default zoom level. Seeing that the others got it after only two playthroughs, that was probably just an issue on my side.
You are welcome!
Super Amazed! (I can't help this sorry)
Took me a couple of tries to get the story. I had to replay to realize that the options don't really offer another ending, and that the operator / main character is doomed no matter what. That was a pretty cool moment, on top of the twist in the story, and I wonder if it was intentional.
Thank you for the feedback! I did hope it would be replayable, but mainly because the player would be either going through things again to see the hints/foreshadowing they missed or picking [RIGHT] every time to fix things, lol. As for the ending, it was meant to be an ambiguous cliffhanger - you don't know if you're about to be saved or destroyed.
Really interesting to see how you approached the constraint with a text-only game, almost like an oulipo exercise. I thought it was a well-conceived scene, moving from "I am a hero" to "I am being used for evil", though I did have to give it a replay to try and get my head around what was going on.
Also, because there was so little extra visual information, I was trying hard to figure out if there were extra meanings attached to the font choices and text colours. Could be a fun thing to explore more?
Thanks for the feedback and for playing the game so early! I guess based on what you said it might need a bit more work to get people to understand the story on the first playthrough.
Also I really appreciate the suggestion about the font and colour choices - it's something I only really thought about once during development. I want to improve the UI by a lot over the next three weeks so the extra symbolism could be something to consider.