The game is great, the visuals are fabulous, and the music is awesome! I love the cover of Popcorn by Gershon Kingsley as the level music! I'd love to buy this on cartridge if and when it ever comes out.

Yeah, absolutely, dude! (I tried recording a let's play of it, but the recording footage became corrupted, unfortunately.)

The majority of the game is great! However, I found the clock hunt near the end to be very boring. It was scary at first, but it lost its intimidation quickly.

Novena is a very beautiful, little story about friendship.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/9t4xnl/where_do_game_devs_go_to_find_m... 
In case there are some responses on Reddit, here's the link in case others are interested in what they have to say, too.

I played up to the point where Micheal rides away on his bike in the park and I am absolutely in love with this little game. I can't wait to play more of it!

Under the game's info box, it says that its status is on "Prototype". Is the game still be developed further or is this a demo or what?

Also who made the music? They did a fantastic job!

I hope this doesn't come off as complaining. I am just very concerned about the future of game composition as a way to make a living and I don't know what to do.

Hi! My name is Alex. Creating music for video games is a great passion of mine and I've been doing my best to do it professionally for many years. However, I'm starting to become disenfranchised from it because there just seems to be absolutely no one who wants and is willing to pay for custom game music.

I regularly check forums and subreddits like r/gameDevClassifieds, Newgrounds, TIGSforum, IndieDB, Develteam and various Discord servers and not a single one of them ever say something along the lines of "[PAID] Composer Needed!". It's all just a bunch of abandoned forum threads of hopeful composers throwing their resumes at the wind. Is there a better way composers could seek out work?

I guess another way to phrase this question could be: "Where do game dev studios go to find composers?"

It started out fairly easy, but once it started speeding up, a problem became apparent. For the horizontal-moving enemies, there was plenty of reaction time to press the button. For the vertical-moving enemies, though, there was far less because the game stage is rectangular. So, I developed a strategy called the "Mash All Four Arrow Keys Til You Win" strat.

You may want to balance your game to account for the 16:9 game stage and the ability to mash the keys with no punishment.

Also, the buzzer sound effect for matching the enemy with the arrow key sounds like you're doing something wrong instead of something right.

Besides those problems, the art looks nice! It looks like the art was made in Flash so it gave the game a very Newgrounds-y vibe!

91 points is my high score! BEAT THAT SHIT.

If you are reading this far into the future and this post seems outdated, feel free to contact me anyway! My email is adesyndicate@gmail.com.

Hello, my name is Alex Emenheiser and I’m looking to compose original, quality music for your game! I have more than a decade of experience in music and have been composing music for video games since 2012.

PORTFOLIO

My portfolio is filled with the music for a variety of games, spanning many genres. Orchestral, 8-bit and 16-bit chiptune, rock, jazz, electronica, ambient; I will work my best to create music in any genre you need! (I can even create custom demo music if needed.)

Nexomon https://soundcloud.com/adesyndicate/sets/nexomon-samples A turn-based RPG about a young lad off to save the world with his team of Nexomon! The bulk of Nexomon’s music is orchestral with some synth-based tunes, too! The music director at Lime Turtle, Inc. was so pleased with my music that he promoted me to Lead Composer for the sequel! Commission.

DragonBlossom https://soundcloud.com/adesyndicate/sets/dragonblossom-original-score A colorful, fast-paced RPG platformer! The game director was very happy with the music and negotiating contracts was fast and easy. The music was inspired by that of the Sega CD and TurboGrafx CD era. Pro bono.

Spook Royale https://soundcloud.com/adesyndicate/sets/spook-royale-original-score A Halloween- and 1990s-themed, retro twin-stick shooter! Also created a number of sound effects for the game, too! Pro bono.

yBorg https://soundcloud.com/adesyndicate/sets/yborg-original-score A metroidvania game about a little robot boy with amnesia searching the land for meaning. Other composers on the project were often impressed with what I brought to the table, even incorporating lyrics into a song! Pro bono.

Project Skates https://soundcloud.com/adesyndicate/sets/project-skates A shmup sidescroller about bunnies with guns! For this game, the music directors would sometimes have me go through revisions until we developed what we were looking for! Pro bono.

Dungeon Misadventures Original Score https://soundcloud.com/adesyndicate/sets/dungeon-misadventures-ost The original score for an animated series called Dungeon Misadventures, a comedy cartoon about three professional heroes fixing wrongs and going on quests! Commission.

WEBSITES

Websites include SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, and Newgrounds! In fact, you can find even more music on my Newgrounds page not found anywhere else!

• SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/adesyndicate/albums/
• YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/adesyndicate/
• Newgrounds - https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/

I am flexible with handling payments and I can work within your budget. Please contact me to further discuss money matters. (Paid work only; no pro bono or revenue sharing please. Thank you!)

CONTACT

You may contact me at adesyndicate@gmail.com if you are interested!

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you!

      — Alexander Emenheiser

Some things I had problems with in Exiles: I had some trouble figuring out how to unlock doors with key cards since you have to swipe the key card and then open the door whereas in many other games you just swipe the key card and the door opens automatically. I figured it out, though, so it's not entirely necessary that it be streamlined.

After picking up the bedroom key, I absolutely could not figure out where to go.

Some things I liked about Exiles: There are genuine stretches of dread that are caused primarily by level design. There is a section where there are two floors. I avoided going down the bottom floor (because it's scary!!), so I instead did everything there was to do on the first floor until there was nothing left and I had to go down stairs. That had me flustered.

The way the visuals are shaded makes the game look like it's made of clay or velvet. That's great! It makes Exiles look fairly unique among the plethora of horror games that go for photo-realism. The blurring and lighting effects also look fantastic! The scary strings that kick in when the zombie boy appears made the whole encounter even more stressful.

P.S. there's a bug at the end of the video that you should absolutely keep in the game.

Hello,

My name is Alexander Emenheiser, and I am a freelance Composer based in York, Pennsylvania, United States. I am currently on the lookout for new projects to work on. I have experience writing for a myriad of genres and styles including 8- and 16-bit chiptunes, orchestral, electronica, et cetera.

If you would like to get in contact with me about a project, add me on Skype! My username is “adesyndicate”. You can also contact me by email at adesyndicate@gmail.com!

I have my other music on the Newgrounds audio portal and on SoundCloud. If you want to know more about me and the other games I've composed for, you may go to my website.

Thank you for your time!

Sincerely,
Alexander Emenheiser

Hello! My name is Alexander Emenheiser, and I'm a musician of more than ten years: a decade as a pianist, four as an electronic musician, and two as a vocalist. I'm looking to collaborate or get hired by indie game developers. I can do a variety of styles and genres of music.

If you are interested or have questions, email me at adesyndicate@gmail.com!

— Alex E.

I sent you an email!

NEATO! I'm liking those rules, too! I'm totally doing this.

I'm interested in composing the soundtrack to your game! I have more than nine years experience as a pianist and I've been wanting to get into video game composing for a long time now. What is your email so that I can contact you?

You're welcome!

Reminds me of the old Sonic X trinket toy games McDonald's used to sell back in 2005 or so and Tiger Electronic's LCD games. This is a subcategory of video games that doesn't get enough neo-retro love.

A small tip, man: don't name your files ending with a number in parenthesis; people on Windows might mistake it for being the eighth time they've downloaded Jake.zip.