The best thing about the game is its mood and tone. The way the prose centers on the main character easily sets up that noir vibe and when combined with subtle sound design, like a monotonous tone in the background, adds to the sort of this world that feels oppressive. There's obviously a lot of care that was put into the world building. I just kind of wished I understood a bit more. What may feel fleshed out in your head and taken for granted for the character because this is their world, may be a little harder to grasp for the player. For example, in the beginning, we know you have a job, OSI, but we don't know the acronym, or what they do as an organization, or your role other than doing paperwork. I often felt like I was just taken along for the ride, but sometimes didn't know the stakes, or where I was going or why. But I understand that's a challenge to do without doing expo dumps. One way to hide that is to have an interaction with a character who hates who you are, and explain with contempt about what it is that you actually do or what they think you do.
As for the gameplay, this could be a stylistic choice, but using ellipsis as a dialogue option could be interpreted in so many ways, which made it a bit hard to know the implication of what that choice could mean. Obviously, to not say something is a choice, but if you're only given two choices, and one of them, I didn't know what it meant, that felt a bit limiting or impactful. But some of the dialogue and writing outside of the choices were quite fun to read.
Very impressive how you all were able to breathe life into a fascinating space in such a short amount of time.
Viewing post in Who Dreams for Us? Episode 1 jam comments
Thanks a lot for taking the time to write such a thoughtful breakdown. The mood and tone were things we fought hard to get right, so hearing they landed is huge for us. You’re absolutely right about the clarity issues. A lot of the worldbuilding lives so naturally in the characters' heads that we sometimes forget the player isn’t living there with them. We’ll work on folding that context into the narrative in ways that feel organic, like the kind of friction you suggested with characters who really don’t like the protagonist.
And the note on dialogue options is fair. The ellipsis was meant as a subtle emotional cue, but if it ends up muddying choice clarity, that’s on us. We’ll tune that so choices feel intentionally open, not ambiguous for the wrong reasons.
Really appreciate the insight. Thanks!
We really appreciate the feedback, I do personally. My Jam partner is extremely creative, and because of that we have documents upon documents of worldbuilding. I definitely ended up over-cutting things to streamline the plot, but we’re both genuinely happy that the atmosphere came through. If you have more thoughts to share, please do. We truly want to use this project as a future case study, since iteration is the only path to growth. Our deepest thanks.