Holy moly, this game was so awesome. I loved the pixel art, the animations, practically everything to do with graphics is very well done. I also really enjoyed the voice acting and alll of the sound effects! they brought the game to life seriously. Really solid stuff there. The cooking minigame, holy awesome!! I got 8 my first time and didnt even think i did that horribly, until i got 70 the next round lmao. Wonderful. 

My gripes with this game are few, it is a very well rounded game! On the graphics side of things, I got a little thrown off by the game not being 'pixel-perfect' (meaning it uses the same size pixel art throughout the entire game). It kinda made the sprites seem disconnected from the backgrounds and felt a little weird. <-- this might just be my personal preference, as games like stardew valley that do the same thing also throw me off lol, but still something to at least consider!  I don't want to sound too berating here because it is truly a masterpiece, especially within the timeframe! Anyway, audio is very great, no notes there lol. Gameplay is awesome tooo, all of the minigames are great!

This was a great experience and im still astonished you guys managed this with 30 freakin days! Amazing work to every aspect!

Wow, what a labor of love this turned out to be. So great to finally see this unveiled after following tantalizing screenshots in the discord.

First let me start with the best parts. The pixel art style and the production value put into this project are outstanding, I think the artists on your team need a raise.. metaphorically i guess :P The spinning lighthouse beam title screen is just outstanding.

The audio is also very well done, and although the voice acting is admittedly amateur recording quality, lacking the extreme polish levels of the graphics, for a jam game it was excellent work and i really liked the characters by the end based solely on their voice acting.

The storyline was interesting to me, but I should mention that the tone of the game was not what i expected. I was geared up for a horror game of some kind based on the tagline “Worse than the dark… is what the light reveals” I kept waiting for something spooky to happen until i realised what the gameplay loop was going to be. Even so I appreciated the ambition of telling a true story and framing it as about balancing choices (family, duty, sacrifice etc)

Next some criticisms…. Starting with the game play

First off the gear puzzle sucks :| Sorry to be blunt, but it’s the only one i didn’t enjoy at all, and it’s not as well implemented as the others. I didn’t find it interesting to solve, I just trial and error solved it based on what gears could or couldn’t reach each other.

Second of all, the adventure game style framing with the lighthouse view would be much more suited to a full adventure game, perhaps finding a gear under Elisses bed… adventure game style puzzles etc.. would flesh this game out and address my third complaint…

Which is that the gameplay is a bit samey. The exact same routine each day is not very interesting. Although admittedly this experience doesn’t overstay it’s welcome - some variation in the daily routine wouldn’t go astray. By far the most memorable parts to me were the diversions in the daily routine. When Elisse was waiting in the kitchen for me I was suddenly very curious and immersed.

I think this game would have been fine with just 3-4 screens, 1 per mini game, and didn’t really need the walking up and down the lighthouse. Of course, the fantastic artstyle wouldn’t have been so clearly on display in that case, but purely in terms of gameplay the traversing up and down the tower didn’t do anything for me.

Finally, the loading screens are ass and very unimmersive imo. In retrospect, I would have preferred to play on desktop I think as the loading screens really break the immersion, especially taking you to a simple puzzle game and back warranting a loading screen seems excessive. What can be done though for a browser game :shrug so I get it.

Finally Finally, let me close this criticism sandwich with a disclaimer and a compliment…

So this is by far one of the most polished and ambitious entries I’ve played, and I’ve played almost 250 now :) I’m only taking extra time to go into close detail on my criticism because the high level of effort put into this submission warrants it.

And I wanted to make special mention that the first time I played the cooking minigame, I got a quality score of 0, slightly furious and ready to write a scathing comment about the cooking minigame being terrible. However by the end of the playthrough - and once I’d figured it out - the cooking minigame was my favourite part of each day, and would probably warrant an entire jam submission by itself.

All round very high quality entry with a clearly tremendous amount of effort put into it. Great work, continue to grow and challenge yourselves!

Edit: Oh! Almost forgot to mention, the suspicious german accented guy claiming to be an american is by far the most dynamic character in the entire game :’D Loved it

Lovely game that tells a very beautiful tale in a very beautiful way. The repetitiveness of the daily chores, with the light mundane tasks like chopping vegetables and cooking dinner being just as normal as the gruesome sneaky threats you get by radio and Morse code... this set the tone so nicely you feel part of that reality. And all of this mood is neatly tied up with the AMAZING music. Having voiceover [late edit] is impressive and shows that a lot of love was involved in the process of making this game. [/late edit]

A couple things I would point out that could improve the whole experience is small things like the floor transitioning, because sometimes (specially with the bedroom's stairs) I wanted to walk down the room and the player ended up going to the lower floor. Maybe changing the region in which pressing down changes floors, idk... The other small thing is some UI elements, like in the (amazing) Morse code minigame, the coded message could stand out more, or in the (also amazing) cooking game it wasnt super clear if some ingredients really were added at first.

Overall, beautiful game! Congratulations.

Yes, very clear a lot of love went in this game.  Very nice, easy to play and engaging.  I'm guessing the natural accent but nice touch and feels like I'm actually there doing the things.  Cooking was difficult, I stopped there to post a rating and these comments.  Really well done with the split view and need to navigate a real 2/3 D world.  Like the wave engagement for the radio and learning/using morse code.  The cooking mini - task game seems possible but I'll need to go back and check the recipe book, etc.  All is very intuitive.  Nicely done.

It's clear a lot of love went into this game, especially since you made every part of it during the jam.     It's very immersive with excellent polish and great art and music.  Voice acting really stands out in a jam as well.  The mini games work great and feel immersive, with a particular shout of to the Morse Code game.  Having to type the message yourself slowly letter by letter is wonderfully suspenseful.  Transition between having the side view of the whole light house on and off is satisfying as well I toggled it a few times just for fun.  I really loved the small pieces of dialogue that would happen outside of a conversation like burning the food.

Since this is an extremely polished experience already, I'm going to give much pickier feedback than usual and more of it.  Ya'll got full marks from me, these are just some bolts I think could be tightened to push it over the top.

This game is incredibly immersive, but the loading screens actually broke that immersion for me eachtime.  They're excellent loading screens, but I would consider something like a fade to black, black loading screen, fade back in when going to and from a mini game.

The target phrase box in the Morse Code mini game is really hard to see.   The book on the left showing the alphabet is MUCH more eye catching and my attention was immediately drawn there.  I spent at least a minute wondering if I should be hearing the beeps or trying to spell out words before I even noticed the target phrase.  

The controls for the gear mini game:  Right now you click to pick up a gear and click to place it.  I would change it to holding the mouse button down to pick up the gear and releasing to drop it.  This is what I intuitively thought it would be and it matches the kitchen mini game.

The cooking mini game felt overwhelming.  I think it would be a great idea to have a small cooking section on the first day with a much simpler recipe and without time restrictions.  It can frustrate a player if they have to learn a mechanic while also being timed on it's execution.  You also have to click into the book spending some seconds to look at the recipe.  I also wasn't sure if after the food was burned if you were supposed to start all the way over?  This is a well made mini game it just needs a bit more clarity.  

Maybe an autosave system?  This one is maybe a bigger ask if you don't have save slots but you do have a save system.  I was playing the windows build and the third time I burnt the food my game crashed.  I remembered seeing a continue button on the home screen and was sad when it didn't let me resume prior to the crash.  I didn't realize that I had to manually save, even though that's a reasonable expectation.

And finally check the below screenshot.  Navigating the bedroom stairs has some awkwardness.  When you go up the stairs from below the player character is put in the corner above the stairs.  I pressed S and D together to try and walk diagonally down but since I hit S I was sent down the stairs.  This happened multiple times.  I would move where the player spawns to the red circle to make this a bit better.    

Exceptional work! I look forward to seeing what ya'll make next. 

Very interesting setting a game within a historical event. I think I am going to try and remember to read up on what really happened to the lighthouse. I actually got the chance to sail to Fair Isle many years ago, what a unique experience that was. There were puffins everywhere.

Really good work. Very nice graphics and music! A little difficult to cook... the best thing about the game is the atmosphere

This is a very creative submission! Loved the voice acting. Struggled on the cooking bit but otherwise the game was fantastic. The pixel art was brilliant.

Very cool game.

Love the art, love the morse code decoding, and most of the minigames. so cool to have real voices as well.

The cooking thing is a bit confusing, but there is so much diversity in this game it's amazing.

Love the storytelling.

I had to park it for now but will come back to it and try to finish it!

Awesome submission!

The scope of the art and the story is great! The pixel style is done very well. I enjoyed the morse code and radio-tuning minigames.

Smith slept with me mam :(
Otherwise 5/5, however I did get stuck just before the end (I think). I wasn't able to progress to the credits:

Great job - fantastic submission!

This is Amazing. a real thing , i loved everything the artwork ,the music the story , Good Job

Awesome art! a lot of content :)

Loved the voice acting! 

The only thing - I was really stuck with the morse puzzle :D Let me know who to solve it or what am I doing wrong, I really want to continue the story :)

Great work, the art is really good!

I enjoyed decoding the Morse code messages the most, and like the others I felt a bit stuck on the cooking minigame.

I thought the audio could use a bit more polish, but great work getting actual voice lines in!

Although I typically don't play narrative driven games like this, I thought the story was tastefully done and I appreciated the historic setting.

Again, really nice work!

Wow what! What a lovely game. Wonderful attention to detail and I can tell you all really put your hearts into it. I especially enjoyed the morse code mini game. Excited to come back and finish the game hopefully tomorrow. 

Stunning art + story, very impressive and an ambitious project for a jam! The voice acting and dialogue was super well done. Especially liked how the voices on the radio lead you to make certain decisions too.

I struggled with the cooking minigame but I'm glad the game was gentle and let me continue haha. I figure I missed something, as the pot would consistently overheat for me I think, while I prepared ingredients. Any hints would be appreciated :)

I also seem to have gotten stuck at the same spot as others mentioned, after reading the note in the lockbox. Would love to experience more, because the story is so sweet!