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A jam submission

Digital AshView game page

Become your own Digital Ash and hack through the machines that hold your fate.
Submitted by Septarap, Alix-(Moulya Paramesh), Eduardo Soto - sotocodes (@sotocodes) β€” 3 minutes, 43 seconds before the deadline
Rated by 14 people so far
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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Hi! I played through your game from start to end. Since you asked for narrative feedback, let me share what I noticed.

Just to give you context for where I'm coming from, here's how I personally approach narrative work. I usually start with a basic skeleton of the story, then layer it iteratively until I have something readable. I cut what doesn't serve the piece and shape it into a prose script. To translate that into a game, I break it down into sequences and scene cuts, group connected pieces together, and think carefully about how each part will appear to the player. That becomes the final game script. I cut more if needed at this stage, then test it in-engine to check whether any awkwardness comes from the writing or from something else. This is just my own way of working, not a prescription.

With that said, and despite my limited experience, here's my honest impression of both the story and gameplay, since you asked.

The first thing I noticed is that the game tries to imprint a very specific theme on the player right from the start. Specific themes need more groundwork to land properly, and without that setup, it became the first thing that broke my immersion. Second, there's no explanation for why I should be skipping past these devices. The only intuitive visual cue connecting things is a vague circle outline, and that felt ambiguous. There's also no explanation, written or shown, for why the room is filled with so many electronic devices. If you don't want to express it through text, it has to be shown through action. Without that, the player can't establish a real reason to engage. The failure risk also felt too steep. Sending the player all the way back to the start after one slip-up will wear out a lot of players. Without context to make that acceptable, players who can't justify the cost in their head will drop off. I was one of them.

I don't usually play puzzle games, but the input method and gameplay here are genuinely creative and original. That part really caught my interest. I just couldn't find a reason from within the game itself to keep going.

Sorry if this came across as harsh, that wasn't my intention. You took the time to play my game, so I wanted to give you the most honest version of what I felt back, in the hope it actually helps. I sincerely wish your official release goes well.

Developer

This is very thorough, definitelt above and beyond for a game jam comment, I really appreciate it, so thanks! We're going to take these comments into consideration because we do want to polish the game further past the game jam. Cheers!

Submitted(+1)

cool conect art bery great   realy great envermt saf is also good over all great job 

here is my game playy and rate it

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your kind words 😊

Submitted(+1)

the concept is really good. I think the innovation here is pretty good. Havent played a game like this in this gamejam. Good work!

Developer

Thank you so very much for your kind words!! πŸ™πŸΌπŸ˜‡

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I like the concept, and luckily as you finish you first run you are able to type mid flight (i think it's probably the best of the 3 powerups, if there are only 3, i only made 1 run)

I unraveled the story like this: level 1 > server > garage and i liked it, damn you Patrick!
The music is tense, i liked it. The graphics are fine i guess.
The game stands out for it's 9 keys mechanic for sure, i didn't see another game using that in this jam!

However i would put a warning for the orange phones, not that the game is hard, but i had a little of a meh after i took 5 minutes to understand how to play on the first level then had to restart from scratch xD (or maybe the hint was there and i didn't read properly, i don't know)

Overall is a game i would like to play with some tweaks! :)

Developer(+1)

Yes we definitely need to work on ways of delivering tutorial with minimal need to read the texts. Some updates have already been committed in engine, that we would release soon after judgement period.

I truly appreciate your words. Thank you very much for your feedback πŸ™πŸΌ

Submitted(+1)

Cool Concept! And very atmospheric too! Tho I was struggling with the gameplay a bit haha.

Developer

yeah, we shall have the game updated as soon as the judgement period ends. We are really glad you tried the game. Thank you so very much β˜ΊοΈ

Submitted(+1)

Great atmosphere

Developer

thank you very much for playing the game😊

Submitted(+1)

Very clever mechanics! Haven't seen that before.

Developer

Thank you so very much!!

I know the game is rough around the edges, and Tutorials have been doing less than stellar job with explanations. But we aim to fix that with consequent updates.

Submitted(+1)

Very unique concept - I like it!

My only two concerns would be: movement speed (too slow for my liking) and the game (or I assume the engine) ignoring my keyboard layout which is not QWERTY πŸ˜…

Everything else is awesome. Great entry.

Developer

Oh yeah, We actually did this on purpose!

The control scheme is QWEASDZXC

which is a 9x9 grid on your keyboard. Check keyboard right now and you'll see!

This was done so as to make sure player does not have to use 2 hands for playing the game. 

Although, we should've mentioned that in tutorials so it is on us...please do try again and let us know if the control scheme is comfortable or not. Thank you for playing our game 😊

Submitted(+1)

Looks very cool, fun concept! Its a little hard at times to determine where to go / what is in range, some look like they aren't but you can go to them, some look like they are but you cant, but its quick to get back to where you were if you die so its not annoying. Very good!

Developer

Yeah...the assets we used are much smaller or bigger than the colliders so it's a little difficult to determine the exact ones in range πŸ˜…

.

But we will surely fix that in an upcoming update.

Submitted

any chance we could skip that long intro sequence and see what the actual gameplay is?

Developer

Yeah, we ran out of time so couldn't add the Polish and big fixes we wanted, for the terminal text you can finish a line immediately by tapping space.

Developer

Hey thank you for that feedback! We will surely add a button (possibly S) to skip the cutscenes so you can access the gameplay sooner.

Might even help for speedrunning.

It's reviews like these that help a game jam game grow and become better πŸ‘πŸΌ

Truly appreciate it 🀝🏻