Post by Avery Hiebert in Cabin Pressure jam comments

Adventure Jam 2023 » Entries » Cabin Pressure

Viewing post in Cabin Pressure jam comments

Probably my favourite art of the jam so far. It's also nice to have multiple ways to accomplish the same task, and the options available were pretty clearly laid out. Overall, it feels like a coherent setting/moment in time with a consistent logic to it.

I made it to the cockpit on my first playthrough, and then immediately accidentally "won" on the second playthrough. But from the framing it wasn't clear that this was what had happened so I thought maybe there was some sort of Groundhog Day loop / "dream within a dream" thing going on, with a better ending to try and get. So I still tried again before reading the walkthrough and understanding that I had already "won" by accident. Not sure whether any of this is actionable information; just explaining my experience of playing the game.

Anyways, I definitely enjoyed this one! Extremely polished and fun to play.

Like Reply

Simon van Wyk1 year ago

Thanks so much for your kind words and for sharing your play through experience!

Yeah… you’ve had the basic experience we knew might happen but have no idea how to fix! At least you got into the cockpit - we know some people might win accidentally with their first choice they make and have no idea what happened, :)

We’ll probably workshop this a bit after all the jam comments are in to see if there’s a way to sign post what is happening more clearly, or… whether we just chalk it down to luck of the draw. My question to you is… if that victory cutscene had been clearer, do you think your win would have been more satisfactory even if it was an accident, or do you think the only way of making it more satisfactory is laying the logic on more thick so that for most people they understand what they’re doing at that point? Or is it both?

We didn’t have time to play test before submitting, so all this info is super helpful!

Like Reply

Avery Hiebert1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

I think winning can probably only feel satisfactory if it's the result of an actual deliberate decision. In my case I figured I had gotten most of the information I needed from the first playthrough, which is the only reason why I didn't talk to the flight attendant on the second attempt. So maybe what you need to do is have some sort of incentive for players to talk to the flight attendant (maybe to get an item?) so they think they need to do it again on subsequent playthroughs, so that not talking becomes more of an active choice?

Also, maybe I should mention that when I was operating on the assumption that there was still a "real ending" to try to achieve, I assumed that the issue was that I would need to be the one to deliver the energy drink to the captain (i.e. maybe the captain needs an energy drink *but also* something else needs to happen that requires the flight attendant to be distracted). It also wasn't clear to me that talking to the captain directly causes a crash by distracting him, since I only got into the cockpit right as the 10 mins were expiring, so the captain fell asleep while talking to me. So I assumed I would be able to give him the energy drink once inside the cockpit, although this proved to be false on a subsequent playthrough. (I did notice the cockpit slowly tipping once I entered, but then the captain visibly falling asleep overrode the idea that I had directly caused the crash by entering the cockpit).

Hopefully that provides some insight into my thoughts/interpretation of what I was seeing.

Like Reply

Simon van Wyk1 year ago(+1)

Oh wow - that’s super interesting, and super helpful. We hadn’t at all clocked that someone might get into the cockpit at the 10 minute mark and have the crash cutscene override the cockpit cutscene. If the cockpit cutscene had played, you would have been in a far better position to understand that your action had caused the crash and that Sandy was meant to give him the energy drink he needed. It might not have completely solved your experience, but it might have made it a lot clearer as to what was happening and why.

A no brainer is that the moment you’re in the cockpit the timer trigger should fall away so that we never allow the pilot falling asleep to happen when you’re actually in there.

In my mind, the energy drink is meant to be a red herring in the sense that we hope some people do assume that they need to give the pilot the drink, and subsequently discover they can’t. We can maybe make this a little clearer in dialogue and interactions with Sandy so that we ride that tension of making someone still want to do that, but also understand why that won’t work.

Anyways - this has all been super helpful and given us a lot of food for thought when we do an update, so thanks so much for taking the time to lay your experience out - it really does help.

Looking forward to playing your game the moment I get a gap!

Like Reply

itch.io

Viewing post in Cabin Pressure jam comments