OH HEY, IT'S YOU, I wrote like half this comment before checking the guide and realizing who made the game, haha... so good to see you actually getting your design-work into playable format.
-------
whooa boy, that was an experience... and a good one too! I'm going to give it a ~full review~ because it's a proof of concept???
Overall, a very nice mix of Yumi-Nikki type surrealism and narrative gameplay. The limited pallet is used to good effect, with judicious use of color distributions in different areas that substantially contribute to difference in atmosphere. The art is fantastic.
The very first zone (pre-town) could do with a bit more "gameplay" to it - the stage it sets doesn't clue the player in to the idea that the game is more than pretty pictures alone. Having some sort of useless pick-up-able (a piece of crumpled-up paper??? Something that forshadows a later important character?) would probably fix that. (You have a preexisting reputation for quality work, which prevents this somewhat, but from a creator who's less well-known people might set down the game there assuming it's a walking sim, and people who were expecting a walk-and-talk sim will get confused when there's actual gameplay.)
A few of the setpieces (for example, the three faceless people/women(?) in the last of the promo shots) feel like they should have a little more interactivity/respond to advancement of gameplay in some way and do not, and it's not always clear what objects are interactable and what are not, which left me wishing for filler dialogue, even if it was relatively generic ("a desk", "a table", "a chair", etc.)
Onto things that were dictated by platform limitations:
Character walksprite animates too slow, makes it look like she's gliding everywhere. (This is one of those "tiny detail, big impact" type things to check on when you're working with an engine that lets you control it, which GB Studio, afaik..... does not.)
Item menus are nice, and I found myself missing them a little.
The 4-color aesthetic is fantastic for this, a perfect fit for that lo-fi horror vibe, and that you were able to make the areas visually distinct beyond just subject matter is... A+, good art. However, I think the game could be improved without inherently altering any of the pixelwork if it were re-rendered in an engine that lets you switch between sets of colors between, even with very, very subtle changes in hsv between the different zones.
Audio: GB Studio has some ridiculous standards for what you can put into it, and between that and, y'know, the huge time-sink of actually composing tracks (hahaaaa, I've programmed a whole unpublished game and stalled out there.....), it's obvious why you didn't add it for a proof-of-concept.
If, at some point, you decide to revisit and tweak this game concept in an engine that supports sane audio formats: tracks that are just subtle bg noises (as appropriate for the zone) + faint noise (different varieties from white/pink/etc and pitches in different areas) plus perhaps chords fading in and out would fulfill that "hey, this feels like there should be sound" need without taking ridiculously long to put together. (I would probably fade them out for the closeup shots to give them emphasis, but that's ultimately an artistic choice)
An idea, from me to you:
This game is a perfect size and level of complexity to port to other engines as a learning tool, and I, as a consumer, would love to see you do that, just to see what changes you make!
There's a temptation to make a whole new proof-of-concept game every time you test a new engine... don't do it. Better to do something fast and a little sloppy with a net of interactions you already understand before you're actually trying to program a new thing "from scratch."
Platforms to consider:
- yo, someone who isn't kadabura, buy kadabura an RPGMaker MV key next time it's on sale. RPGMaker kinda sucks, but it also has all the capacities of GBMaker minus some of the limitations, so you can choose what limitations you want to set.
- PM me and I can give you a copy of the installer for the old, free version of Gamemaker.
- https://gdevelop-app.com/ is overfeatured, but an introduction to somewhat more complicated programming without being wildly awful for beginners
ANYWAY, 10/10 amazing proof of concept with awesome art, a sweet story, and compelling characters. Can't wait to see what you do next!