Post by Sugary Chamomile in A little feedback

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Hey! It's still me - I think. I am myself at least, right?

I have quickly replayed through the game and I can say it looks very, very cool. After reading your comment on not deciding to act on my suggestion of enclosing the bubbles in their own space, I can say I really get what you are going for now, and I cans ay you have got it down to a T (the only part that I think does not fit the aesthetic is the rainbow text which is a bit anachronistic, but who really cares, it fits the vibe and it looks cool)

I have reread the endings and I enjoyed the true endings immensely. From my point of view, you have cooked up a little game on illusions: everyone is lied to in different ways, and I enjoyed the Influencer ending more because of the "lying to oneself" and the doubts about identity especially in the light of the Chat ending.

About the windows: for me it's much, much better and much more precise; but the problem of windows not following the cursor persists if you're fast enough. It's much better, but it's not foolproof. I don't know about html and JS, but I can say that in other game engines there is a necessary one-frame lag between mouse input and the game registering the input and that the only strategy is to work around it. My slughtly educated guess is that this is what is causing this (minor) issue. Really, not a big problem.

Also, I have to say that the broken image for custom streamers still happens. It is very likely that this is a problem on my end (I run itch through a Brave webapp on Fedora linux, take that for what it's worth)

It just came to my mind to spam-check the buttons, and there is a little visual glitch with the loading bars that appear when you spam-press the next button in the lessons. It's nothing game breaking, it's just the bar going backwards.

Another small thing: the SFX adjust bar continuously spams sounds each frame you drag it. Again, I don't know if that is really possible in html + js, but in my opinion it would be a more useful slider if it waited for the sound effect to finish before playing another one. I am not a game designer, though: take this as an idea, not as advice.

As you see, all my complaints are very minor. With all games, and these kinds of short-and-sweet games especially, I think that the right question to ask is: "Does it achieve what it's going for?", and I think yours does. It does not outstay its welcome (managing larger farms and hives would be quite difficult and chaotic, so you don't have to), it wears its ideals on its sleeve and is very clearly trying to make a point (I didn't miss the clash of hearing commentary about the current AI dystopia from an older Windows interface; and also I was wondering when was AM going to show up :) ). The narration is fresh and feel authentic and not too forced when it risks being so, and it is used to the advantage of the commentary it's portraying.

The little additions you put on each ending screen really made me smile. They were so poetic, that was a very good idea.

It's a very well-put together game. All the effort you put into it is crealty visible in its presentation and flow.

Thank you for making this <3

yo252yo11 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks for your thourough and thoughtful review :)

I did a lot of tests with fast window resizing and it fails on my end too, I think this is probably the highest refresh rate I can get with pure html. The only solution would be to make it a proper game, not a website xD The loading bar is another good example of the limit of the medium, since the buttons are for navigating away, I need some sort of trick to keep the user on the page while I'm playing the sound effect xD But hey, at least it should run somewhat okay-ish on any web browser, including the one in cars or fridges or whatevers so thats always a tradeof.

The thing I was really proud of about the True End is that normally, most reasonable players will have a bunch of automated Chat, and the human Chat die on their own, so if you pick the influencer ending you're not only trapped in a performance you cant stop but you also yourself understand that theres a high chance your audience is non existing, which makes it even more tragic xD the true end of Chat in comparison is more of a fun little easter egg to flex that I'm reading twitch chat live xD though it does work as commentary on escapism etc....

It's so interesting that you're saying "make a point" because I feel like this is one of my project where I don't even know what point I'm trying to make, it felt more like surrealist poetry, because it's so disconnected from the real world, though it does reflects a lot of reality. As a rule of thumb I tend to be pleasantly surprised by my projects, and this is a good example. A lot of it is emergent during the creation process and surprises even me xD is that xenopoiesis? xD

btw about xenopoiesis i don't know if you know the context for this game, I wanted to work on this setting for a while, but the game was published during the neurosama (unofficial) game jam. If you dont know her neurosama is an AI powered streamer, a fascinating case of literal hyperstition co-written by a software developer and a fandom and one of the most interesting examples of xenopoiesis im aware of.

Sugary Chamomile11 days ago(+1)

A quick response, just to answer your concerns...

The loading bar as a limitation of the medium for sound effects really makes you appreciate the things you take for granted. I had this issue too in Godot, and the answer was very simple: instead of putting the audio player inside the scene that is changing, I developed a sound player that exists independently of the changing scenes, kind of like UI. As a personal opinion, I think you should consider using a game engine: especially for your usecases, UI work is notoriously great (and easy) in Godot and you would have a lot more creative freedom. (I have also been told that GD script is similar to Type Script and Python. Take that as coming from someone that never used Type Script and barely remembers how to write a function in python)

Also, about "making a point", I think you not knowing the point you are trying to make does not prevent the game from making one in the eyes of the players - it is hard to deny it is quite topical (with Genter TM, AI, escapism, "hell is other people", etc, etc). Also, I would say yes, this is an example of xenopoesis, because you are not filtering out every single thing that is not perfectly alinged to your scope, nor incorporating it into something that is the Big Continuum (TM), you also let some thougths flourish and you incorporated well into the story. The fact you don't know the point you are trying to make is a testimony of the presence of something "alien" so to speak, and the fact you incorporated it into the game would be a (comparatively very tame) form of xenopoetry.

As a sidenote, I think there is very little conceptual difference between Xenopoetry and Xenopoiesis and Keats' Negative Capability, the ability to exist in contradiction without grasping for a solution. Xenopoesis would be an extreme version of it.

I happened to be quite literally jumpscared by neurosama when digging through the context in which your game was published. I had never seen anything quite like it (and her (its?) PC specs made me quite envious i have to admit XD). I think I need some time to digest that and the notion of hyperstition, which is new to me but something that intrigues me extremely.

For something that supposedly travels faster than light, human thought seems to be quite a few years behind when comparing to all this very new and very exciting fold of reality.

Again, thank you for making this game!

Cheers <3

itch.io

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