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A jam submission

After the EndView game page

We'll never go back.
Submitted by BeniMG — 45 minutes, 7 seconds before the deadline
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After the End's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#2033.7503.750
Overall#2893.5263.526
Fun#3313.3133.313
Presentation#3633.5163.516

Ranked from 64 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Preferred Name
We don't have a team but you can refer to me as Beni and to my friend as Nahu!

Newbie?

Newbie

Yes - I'm new to game jams!

How does your game fit the theme?
It fits with the narrative of "Just get Started" as the protagonist needs to start moving on from his past. If he does it or not depends on the ending you get in the game.

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Comments

Viewing comments 40 to 21 of 52 · Next page · Previous page · First page · Last page
Submitted (1 edit)

I really enjoyed the story in this game. Point and click games are hard to do well, but you did a great job with creating the vibes of a sad, also scary psychological game. The puzzles are overall good and aren't too easy or too hard.

I took note of some things you may want to consider:

  • I would make the arrows for room switching more obvious. They're hard to see on the white backgrounds. Perhaps just add a black outline.
  • I would add an extra indicator the door has been unlocked. With the first puzzle, it wasn't clear to me that I got it correct. You can add text which tells you something opened, or if the code failed.
  • I think the dialogue tree's could use some work. Whether you're using the arrow keys or clicking, there should be some way to tell which dialogue option I have selected.
  • I failed the count at the end and the kid got me, and after that I was done. I like the idea of multiple endings, but you should add some kind of checkpoint system so players don't need to start over, unless they want to.
  • I think some of the puzzles could use some clarity, but as I said overall they're good.

Overall excellent work on your first jam. It's good to see someone else do a story-focused game. You should make more games like this in the future!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing :D

When you complete the safe puzzle, the door doesn't actually unlock, it gives you a key which is indicated by a sound playing! Originally it was meant to show you the key before giving it to you but it bugged out for some reason.

For selecting dialogues - there's a white arrow next to the one currently selected, though it may be less visible in bright rooms. And when you choose an option Jacob starts off the dialogue by repeating what you chose! (I'll be sure to add an outline tho)

Didn't have time to add checkpoints or a save system, but I'll be sure to add it when I update the game! I'll also make some puzzles clearer when I have the chance. Thank you for the feedback!

Submitted

Unfortunately wasn't able to progress past this point. Putting in the code didn't do anything no matter how much I tried. The story behind the game is interesting; dealing with grief and survivor's guilt is hard. Good job (ᵔᴥᵔ)

Developer(+1)

That's cuz that's the code for room 4's monitor- 

 You're in room 2, so the code would be 12321, thanks for playing the game tho :D

Submitted

Ahhh, I goofed lol, my bad (ᵕ—ᴗ—)

Submitted

A nice game with a great story. Struggled a bit on the first puzzle because of several ways of interpreting it. Great job!

Developer(+1)

I'll have that problem solved with the updated version, thanks for playing!

Submitted

I SCREAMED IN THE ROOM WITH KASANE TETO!!!!!!! I had problems with the first puzzle so i just figured out in trial and error, but other than that the other ones were pretty ok! I had to play the game again like 3 times to get the ending 5 so if i had a suggestion would be maybe increasing the timer of 60 seconds bc it takes a while to hear properly the heart beating puzzle. The story made me very sad (positive point ofc) and the game overall is really beautiful, great job and fantastic first game jam entry.

Developer

Thank you so much!!! I'll hace to change a lot of stuff, the timer was originally 4 minutes since that's what the song acually lasts for, but I figured it was way too much so I dropped it down to 60.

Thanks for playing :>

Submitted

Pretty good conceptually as a first game jam submission and ambitious as well. I like how everything's presented and the story present within it too, plus all of the interactables as well, but I do believe that you already know some of the points that fall flat and I hope my own feedback won't be repetitive with what others have already said but my main point is that some of these puzzles do appear to be difficult for some people to get a grasp at for one reason or another.

For example, the first puzzle the interpretations of it are a bit too many, such as my own: My first was interpreting it as the numbers on the portrait beside the door as a reference and then the green numbers on it being an 8 since I figured I'd try something that was more blunt at first. The problem for me came with the X Green where I figured it meant to multiply the prior number by whatever Green was. With my interpretation coming out wrong I turned instead to consider alternatives such as Green meaning the Yellow and Blue numbers added together since they mix to green or maybe it was all in reference to the coloring of all the objects in the area/across all three rooms since those colors were present between the three rooms/the last room. I was stuck on that part till I checked these comments to figure out what the X Green ultimately meant, but that's part of the challenge whenever it comes to balancing out puzzles.

This part may have been my own overthinking of the situation, but these things can be very tricky to get right depending on the person, because if the balance is off and the puzzle is the blockade, then that may just be the end of the game for a player eventually. That all said, I'm not going to fault you for that, it is a tricky thing to get right and as we had mentioned before in my own post you responded to, this is part of the experience to come with this kind of thing that you can better implement later. Plus it's better for this experience to come up in a Game Jam rather than a published game where that can seriously hamper your own reviews of it. I think it's best to try to view the puzzles from different people's perspectives to see what conclusions they make come to upon looking at it or maybe to account for where those interpretations can go awry because of one scenario or another. But conceptually the ideas present are very solid and I think the depth to the puzzles and the interpreations of them just need better balancing out between the two in order to make something wonderful for all.

I tend to go into detail like this for things that I get a bit passionate about in the hopes that it can possibly help, but of course that is my own... terribly complex perspective/feedback on it. I very much like the ideas present here and the game as a whole but I figured perhaps it'd be helpful to give this feedback to try to help the craft of it all coming together maybe better if you do find it to be helpful, otherwise oops I did a ramble. Regardless, it's a good game very much so for a first time jam game. I hope you can keep up the good work.

Developer(+1)

Yeah, a lot of people had some trouble with the safe puzzle, but after seeing the collective feedback from everyone I already have a list of changes that would make the game better!

I hope when the full version does get out (maybe like August) you and the others get to play it, thank you so much for playing and giving feedback on this one :D

Submitted

For a begineer, this was awesome! I don't think i've seen a point and click game in a very long time and you executed it nearly perfectly. Amazing job!

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted

I really like the structure of this game, where you get some of the story than do an escape room that's a good loop! while I do think it's clever idea to have the heart beat spell out the code, i tend to be quite tone deaf so i wasn't able to understand it unfortunately I'm sorry  , I would like if there was some sort of visual indication to help and distinctly different noises. I was also struggling to understand the X symbol as i thought it meant times like blank x green, would mean 0 X 8 = 0. I think it would be better if it there was some message saying like count green - blue for example, so that it's more clear to understand. 

I also like how well you created tension in the story, the sound design and especially with the time limit of the final puzzle, I think that worked very well. and as I was replaying a few times to try and get to the end, i thought the humour of the speed run ending was well done with the sudden tonal shift. 

also I encountered a bug where i was stuck in a loop talking to monika in case you weren't aware that happens and I'd also like Nyx to be expanded on as I didn't know what relation she was to the protagonist, guessing i thought she was monika's alter ego but nothing came of it. 

overall good effort though!      

Developer(+1)

First of all, thanks for playing my game! The heartbeat puzzle will be reworked since the first 2 are pretty similar, and I plan to change the X on the vault puzzle to Nº or something else to make it apparent that it means the 'amount' of green.

The Monika thing isn't actually a bug, but her dialogues circle back to the same ones in case you missed them, you have to choose between the options with the arrow keys and appropiate mouse control was not integrated since I didn't have enough time (I'll put it in the updated version).

I was planning to do WAY more with the story and Nyx since Room 4 was supposed to be entirely different, and I was also planning to add a Room 5, but I didn't have enough time and the game got stuck in a limbo :<

Again, thank you so much for playing my game! I hope you can see the completed version when I get it out :D

Submitted

Sure! let me know when you've updated it

Submitted

Am i Stupid ? it took me 10 minutes to just get a code for the vault which was suppose to be easy . The narrative of this game is nice and sad , you successfuly made me depressed for a minute.

Developer

Dw you're not stupid, a lot of people had trouble with the vault puzzle! I plan to change it later on :>
Sorry about the depressing part, but thanks for playing! 

Submitted

Super sad story, but very well done game. I love this type of puzzle games.

I was very confused by the first puzzle because I thought green was supposed to be the sign of infinity, so I thought infinity times 0 is equal to 0. But then I got it and solved it. The next ones where more simple for me. I got the ending where the son catches you.  

Beautiful game and narrative. Good job!

Developer

Yeah my bad, I put some 8s horizontally so it kinda looked like that, thanks for playing!

Submitted

I love this game, the art and dialogue is really good!

The puzzles were also pretty fun :)

Developer

Thanks!

Submitted

Hmm, interesting point-and-click adventure game, I used to love these a lot when I was a kid.

Your narrative is very good. Sad story can be very powerful narrative tool in the video game world, and I thought you did very well.

Good job on your first jam!

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted

I thought this was a very ambitious game, both in its gameplay and also its narrative themes, but I think you did a great job! I like point-n-click games so I found the puzzles enjoyable and intuitive for the most part. Great job for your first jam!

Developer

Thanks :D

Submitted

This can be an interesting story, grief and that kind of topic can be entertaining and usually I like sad stories and topics for a variety of personal reasons, though, I’m not a fan of this kind of character or the father family ones, just don’t stick to me haha.

That said, I would liked to know more about Nyx and the entire strange place the game develops on. I think it can be interesting to explore or can lead to some twists. It’s nice that at the end of the game, you can see what are the important actions that lead to different endings, so you can focus on that easily and I appreciate that touch, more games should do that. :) 

About the gameplay, the audio puzzle can be good but it can be a bit difficult to have it right when the differences are subtle between 2 sounds, 1 was clearly more lower than the other 2 but I had a bit of trouble solving it haha, The code one is simple but good, I guess the only trouble I had in general in this game was with the interaction system, I could touch the level objects while the dialogue was on and that make them overlap, which isn’t much of a problem with the game since most dialogues can be repeated and the important ones are almost by their own, but could lead to a bit of frustration when open the puzzle panel and already I introduced an input by accident, which can be time consuming in the last part.

Also, a bit of feedback when you hover an object that you can interact with would be nice, just to make it clearer that you can do that, in this case it wasn’t needed because everything in the room is playable.

About objects in rooms, I had fun exploding Teto, very funny hahaha, also I would liked to see the teddy bear.

The audio fits the mood and the sfx is good, the only downside is that the sfx are too loud, but are good. Everything feels coherent and that helps the story.

To end my comment, I appreciate that you uploaded the game despite the missing rooms and all the cut content, I respect that! (And I laugh a little when I saw the incomplete room because the text in the wall hahaha, also thanks for putting what content was cut, helped me to see a little bit your original idea :) )

Sometimes the fear of judgement keeps us from doing stuff, seeing people don’t post their games because it’s incomplete can be a little saddening but I like that you upload the game. I could read this interesting story that maybe I’m not much into it but some people do, also it’s great that you decided to make your own visuals! It can be hard and time consuming, so even if you think you suck at it, you did it and eventually you will get better at it, I know how that feels but if you keep doing it, you will get better at it, just keep going. ^_^

And grats on finishing your 1st game jam, keep doing games! :D

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much! I haven't seen such an in-depth review of my game yet so I really appreciate it!

Originally I was planning to explore this game a lot further with the story and Nyx, but I didn't have enough time since I had to do room 3 and 4 in the last day. I've also received lots of complaints about the sfx in this game, I plan to make the monitor puzzle more distinct and the sfx less loud, and the interaction system is a bug, I'll fix it when the Jam ends!

I also considered highlighting each interaction whenever you hovered the mouse above them but I thought that was only possible thru shaders, which I didn't have any experience with, so I let it be.

Anyways, thank you so much! Comments like yours keep me going, and congrats on getting the best ending! 

Submitted

I was lucky and saw the reaction in the server haha, I always try to give this kind of feedback to games I play, the downside I end up playing just a few lol

Always the time limit in jams cut a lot of ideas but nice you have plans for the story :)

Submitted

Sadly i couldn't get pass the first level lol but looks fun, it does give the feeling of these escape puzzly games, good job to both of you for your first jam!

Developer

It's ok, not many people get past it sadly :,<

The hint to the puzzle is in the right room and it has to do with the painting in the middle room, each color represents a number. The X next to the green color algo represents the 'amount' of that color in the painting. Hope you can retry the puzzle!

Submitted

Yeah tried again, reached the unfinished room i don't know if there's more after this tho, kinda lost again :D

Developer

Room 4 is the final one for now, so no :>
You can get more endings depending on what you do in the game btw!

Submitted

I think the son caught me at the end, does throwing the ring away or not change anything in the end?

Developer(+1)

If the timer runs out the son will catch you and you'll get ending 0, but if you complete the puzzles in time you'll get a different ending depending on what you did with the ring and the bear!

Submitted

Wow you managed to get so much story into this. I love how the last level just said yeah it's not finished haha. I could solve the puzzles so I'm glad they weren't too hard :) My only real criticism is that for me the paper sound was kinda loud sometimes. Maybe a volume slider or soomething like that could help? Well done man really impressive for afirst game jam. 

Developer(+1)

Yeah for some reason the second time it's even louder, I'll patch that when I have the chance. Thanks for playing!

Submitted

What an incredible story and puzzle game! I think my favorite part of it all was all the small pieces of dialogue you get by clicking on each object, it really adds a lot to the ambiance and makes me feel immersed. The story itself is also very well done. A great game, especially for your first jam!

Developer

Thank you so much! I like putting bits of the story on random objects since it feels more natural. Glad you liked it!

Submitted

Great narrative-puzzle game you made!

I experienced some minor bugs, e.g. Dialog-boxes that spawned over one another or the sfx for the heart beat monitor only played once (where as im not so sure if this may be intended?). But nothing game breaking.

Congratulation on your first game jam submission, you did great.

Developer

Thanks! Dialog Boxes spawning over one another are a known bug, and the monitor thing too. It only happens in the executable version and the browser version is free of it. Thanks for playing my game!

Submitted

awesome game. I do suck at sound based puzzles though

Developer

Thank you! I'll try to nerf or at least make it more audible when I update the game :>

Submitted

Great job! This is an amazing game right here, the theme and story reminds me a lot from a game called 'Inmost'. I loved it, really! Only thing I would change would be to mute, slow down or lower the volume of the music when you are trying to hear the heart monitor. Overall a great game!

Developer

Believe it or not the music does lower it's volume during that puzzle, but apparently not enough! I'll be sure to lower it more once I update the game, thank you!

Submitted

Hey there! I can see the work you put on this game! Very nice work! I loved the idea for the theme and all the endings. Kinda hard at the beggining, got stuck in the safe part and had to see the solution. I also died in my first playthrough XD

Developer

Thanks! I know the first and last puzzle are kinda hard right know, I'll try to make them easier when I complete the game!

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