Your name is Charles, a 13 years old boy who loves puppet theatres and enters a guarding shift overnight. Β· By
1. The gameplay is simple but really fun! I also loved the art style.
2. Lack of sounds/music and enemies get a bit repetitive.
3. It definitely needs sound effects and music. There could also be more kinds of enemies.
Overall, a really nice game. It has a lot of potential and you definitely should keep working on it after the jam ends. Great work!
[Nitro Here]
MulΘumim! (''Thanks'' generated in a random language)
Yeah, after some time you kinda get used to the friends. Our initial thoughts were to create a smaller game that will anticipate a bigger one, with some more content, which would also advance in the story.
As for the sound effects, we tried our best here :) From trying to find CC0/CC ones on youtube to creating them by ourselves in Bosca Ceoil. What sound effects would you recommend adding? For example, we got a "Candy Break SFX" π¬ for when you click on the wrong friend and you lose candies, but we don't have a "Candy Win SFX" for when you do the right thing.
It would be great if you could suggest them here π
1) The pixel art and animations are amazing. The sound effects were nice and smooth and the scream shocked me.
2) The instructions were a little unclear but kind of got it after a few rounds. It was also a little confusing, telling me to push back the bloody ones then the nice ones. Maybe it was just me, but I didn't like how it restarted all the way at the beginning, maybe a level selector system would have been better and a minimum required amount of candy could have been better, though that's just my opinion.
3) Maybe some background music during the playing scene. Also maybe like 2 more hats to make it more difficult.
Some random notes:
- The scrolling is super slow, but then I figured out that you can drag it with your mouse.
- I like the adjustable volume and resolution settings.
[Nitro Here]
Thank you a lot for the detailed review!
About the Instructions... Yeah, they're supposed to confuse the player a little bit so that the game does not end in 4 minutes and 30 seconds... π
As for the levelling system... That's a really good suggestion. At the moment if you fail in the third stage you will get back all the way to stage 1.
Now, I was thinking of a fix for this, and thank you for your opinion. I thought of adding a "Continue" and "New Game" Button. Continue would only work if you didn't finish the game and new game would restart both your in-game progress and candies.
This would also fix the issue of candies stacking up after each new round you play
For the background music, that's a pretty good idea, same with the hats! I think we're just going to leave it as it is on this side, since the game itself is basically setting up for a sequel.
Thanks again for the feedback and we hope we'll make the game more enjoyable! π€The next game will (probably) be a continuation of this one... Maybe again with Pixel Art. Anyway, look forward to it!
This game is graphically impressive and has great audio (I was beside myself to find vocie acting!) and good personality but it does a really exceptionally poor job of explaining to the player how to play the game and what exactly they're supposed to be doing. This isn't the same as a game that makes no effort to explain how to play it or a game where there just wasn't time, effort is plainly put into telling the player what to do it's just not very efficient.
So, you learn by failing. Like, early on, I learned that if I click the bunny, I die. Then I noticed that it's only the red eyed bunny that causes me to die. Most things I clicked on--little wooden dolls, which remind me of homunculi or poppets (also called "voodoo dolls")--seemed to take away (-2) candy, but a few including the bunny without the red eyes caused me to gain some (+1) candy. When not clicked, some of the dolls/poppets/bunnies caused me to gain or lose candy when they returned to the hat on their own after I did not click them for a few seconds. Eventually I realized that "blemished" critters, like the doll with the white spots or the red-eyed MURDERBUNNY, caused candy loss and/or death when clicked, but awarded candy when not clicked, and the "clean" critters (the uniformly brown poppets and the black eyed non-murder bunny) penalized my candy when I failed to click them, in addition to awarding candy when clicked. But that's just the first round and then the next round flips the script on you. I took 'don't let the bloody one get out of the hat' to mean that this time around, we WANT to click on the 'bad' version of the dolls, but this led quickly to instant death and frustration.
[Nitro Here]
First, thank you for your detailed review! We highly appreciate the fact you express your frustrations and the issues the game has.
Indeed, there are problems in terms of explaining to the player what has to be done. We initially imagined it as a try-and-error type of game, where the player plays and then sees for himself what's bad and what's not, but since as you noticed in the game, the requirements are not the same for every level, the player will have to figure out too much of what he has to do on his own.
This will be solved in the next game and we'll make sure to express (at least a little better) how the game works
Thanks for the opinion, and again, congratulations on your game! I played it myself on a stream and it inspired us in what's next to come in 2022... π
That's a really cool game! Kinda like whop the mole buy with twist! I really like the jump scare animation. One thing I'd recommend is the instruction note was a bit too long for me and the control instruction was at the bottom so I have to read them all the way through. But that's from me who's actually don't like getting into reading that much. Overall. Great game ;D
Hey, the atmosphere of the game is great! The art looks splendid, sounds creepy, animations perfect.
But the instructions are very confusing. You have to figure it out yourself by try and error. And that's not a really good thing when there are so much others games you want to try and you don't have time to get deep into this one. I really want to try other levels, but the fact that I need to start from the beginning after failure - don't motivate me to continue playing.
With more clear instructions and level selection, this could be a fun little game to play.
[Nitro Here]
Thanks for leaving your feedback here! Yes, the game was built initially on the old-style try&error way. That requires a little more time from the player to understand what he has to do and can be a little confusing sometimes.
About the instructions, we'll make them more clear next time.
About the level selection, we thought of making a level selection feature, and we also took into consideration the FNAF way of playing. Like, you can never turn back to the previous levels but your current state is saved and you can play from where you left. We'll look into one of the 2 features in the next game, - maybe even something a little more special - , but we'll surely change from the approach we took in the initial Backdoor Shifts.
Thanks for playing it, and nice work with your Santa Game! I really enjoyed it π
1. I like pixel art, sounds and atmosphere.
2. This is not a big disadvantage, but I don't know what these creatures are and I don't know what to do with the "twins". I tried to click on the same appearing creatures (even if they looked different) but I don't know if that's the point.
3. I haven't played for long, but I think the game itself is good. I have nothing to complain about, nor did I see what would require any improvement. I think it would be nice if you could better see what happens when there are these "twins", so that when you click on them, some other animation appears to help the player see if they are doing right.
Overall, the game is good and the only thing that bothered me was that you don't know what these creatures are and what exactly the "twins" are about. Thanks for the review of Mandela Invasion!
1. I like the concept of the game. It's simple but fun, and reminds me a little bit of whac-a-mole. The pixel art and sound effects are creepy and gives a spooky atmosphere. The animations are also great and gives life to the characters. I wasn't expecting voice acting but it was a good surprise and helps with reading along to the notes.
2. I enjoyed the trial and error part of the game, but that doesn't become fun once past the first level because dying restarts to the beginning. Having to play through the first stages again to get a chance to figure out the one I'm stuck on gets tedious and a bit annoying.
3. I agree with the others on here and that a level select would be really helpful and make the trial and error part of the game more fun.
Overall, this was a fun game to try out! I don't usually play horror games as it usually gets too intense for me (I watch playthroughs instead haha), but this was a great experience. The jumpscares aren't over the top and I appreciate the creepy vibes that the game has :D
