itch.io

I really adore everything about this game. The visuals are super bright but not overbearing. The ocean reflects the out of view sunset, the vegetation is green and vibrant, even the sand looks soft and cozy. I think for a game, especially one made by a solo dev, this is quite spectacular. I love how you flipped the theme back onto the players to be the ones facilitating the giving and receiving. It's such a genius choice and I haven't seen any other games do something quite like this. It's a really rare and wholesome moment of humans being able to share the human experience with others without any fear or association with their thoughts. Although that can quickly go south, I haven't seen any of that from this game which I am super happy about and pleasantly surprised. This is definitely one of my favorite games from this jam. I do however think it could benefit from more things to do on the island. The fishing minigame and hand pan playing is super cute but not the most engaging minigames possible. Again, I understand gamejam time constraints so take this critique with a grain of salt: because of how reliant this game is on people being active and actively sending and receiving messages, there's basically nothing to do when messages aren't being sent or exchanged. I also have only sent//received messages from the same people which, I do value being able to build rapport with these people, I think it would fit the vibe a lot better if you weren't guaranteed to hear back from the same people unless you directly reply to them which would make the interactions more meaningful imo. I also think the blur effect is a little intense and the fixed camera angle can be a little unfortunate sometime. But when people are sending messages and the game plays as intended, this is easily one of my favorite games from this jam and if you ever update it, I would be overjoyed. Incredible work!