Before anyone freaks out: no I'M NOT A JUDGE, I just rate and give feedback to everyone's games.
My rating has the same weight as anyone else's!
Welp here are my notes...
Itch marketing:
- Cover art is nice, although I think you should put a logo on it to make it feel complete
- I would like to see some static screenshots, not just gifs that show the game off from a different perspective, but I won't complain about animated gifs
- Web build++
- The pitch is okay. I would add the theming (dark, atmospheric) to it but it's nice.
- It's nice to list the controls on the page, although I think it's better to only put them in the game if they aren't too complicated.
- The page background is a nice touch and it doesn't distract from the rest of the page.
- You could once again, add a logo to the top of the page to complete the drip
Alright time to play the game
- Fullscreen works.. yay!
- What on earth is this sound slider... did you make it go from 0-100?
- The UI is blurry af but I think you already know that... Also the stretched settings panel is weird
- Why's everything so blurry in fullscreen?
- You have the high refresh rate issue where the camera slightly stutters while moving. It's not a huge issue, but it's definitely noticable at high speeds.
- Looking at a note should lock the screen and show mouse. A lot of people like to follow the text they're reading with the cursor.
Sound design:
- Big yes
- I would turn down/lowpass the wind ambience while indoors
The tutorial:
- You don't need to hold the player's hand this hard. These puzzles are really not that hard and you could easily get away with not telling the player how to solve them. In fact, I think it would feel better to players to solve them on their own, even though it's very simple. Finding ways to reward the player for doing something is what turns a good game into a great game!
- The notes feel like the developers trying to explain the game and not a story element whose goal is to help immersion. Try to come up with some second character for your next project if you're going to do stuff like this! Even if they never show up, it creates some mystery that these sort of adventure games really need.
- I would move the notes to head height because I often jumped up to them and started floating while reading. Kind of a minor thing, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
UI:
- I didn't notice the tower icons in the top right until I fixed the third one. The contrast is awful pls change
- Battery indicator so far hasn't done anything, so I'm wondering why it's even shown in the first place
The GAMEPLAY:
- I like the skiing. I think it feels nice even though the player has clearly limited movement (as in, they can't accelerate infinitely).
- The monster tentacles are completely useless and I have never interacted with them. They look cool I suppose? but I'm not sure what gameplay purpose they have, and if they have something, they do a poor job of it. They are easily visible, so they aren't really an obstacle, it's not really an attacking enemy either since it doesn't really move around, so I'm somewhat confused about them.
How can you improve this?
- Make the player backtrack to their house instead of just taking an elevator. This would make the player need to dodge the tentacles (if they even do anything in the first place) and would probably increase playtime.
- You can add weather events, like a short snowstorm where you need to hide in some small wooden houses to survive. I think it would fit the vibe of the game, especially if you combine it with backtracking.
- Make the flashlight battery do something
- Maybe some hills as decorations outside of the "track"
So all in all, it's definitely a "short adventure game about activating all of the radio towers to restore the TV". It's nice, it's decent and other than the blurriness, the visuals are nice.