If I'm not mistaken, this is the highest score I've given out yet.
Everything about this is a banger. The gameplay is solid, with enough changes in challenges and objectives to keep it interesting. The art is great -- tons of little details like the flash of the dash bar as it charges back up and the progressive dronification of our portrait as we take damage. And god -- the story. Not only is this a great use of Disco Elysium text, but it's constantly changing the environment.
This is unironically a masterpiece of a teaser. The twist at the end was both heart-wrenching and enthralling, and I cannot wait to play the rest of this out if you complete it.
(I started typing this before you won. All I can say is: bravo, sir/madam/other. You absolutely fucking deserved it.)
I don't think this was too dark at all! Not even in the bad ending. You had a theme, you committed to it, and you executed on it pretty fuckin' well.
You executed the gameplay pretty fuckin' well too. Using all those mental stats as health bars, using distance as a form of resource... there's the foundation for a very solid roguelike or simple linear story here, if you choose to progress it. Tube-of-toothpaste brain aside, I half-hope that you do. You've got a very unique vibe, some very good dialogue, and a great unanswered mystery. Excellent stuff, especially for a first jam!
update: the mouse is now a part of my household and if anyone takes her away im killing everyone in the room and then myself
This is so goddamn fucking adorable. Like, if you added a few more ways to interact with her, I could legitimately see people paying money for this. I thought it'd get old to have this mouse girl hanging out on my taskbar, but nope, she's my new best friend and if she ever gets too rowdy i can plop her down on the side of the screen and sway a pretty watch and she turns into a perfect hypnotized statue for me, which is a feature all computer intelligences should have, if you think about it.
The hypno popups are also... good. Like. Very good. A total subby mess for this idea might go so far as to compile a list of opinions and reviews for each of the popups, so here's mine:
...anyway >///>
This is a veritable banger. Were it just the desktop pet, were it just the popups, it would've been a highlight of the competition on its own. Getting both, in one place, elevates this from a competition standout to an all-time classic.
Great work. All of you ^w^
this is a damn impressive feat for a month, dude, what the hell
like, no joke, with a few more months of development and some spicy stuff sprinkled in, this could actually be a horny game people pay money for
it's got a perfect balance of gameplay and horny. the gameplay (recruiting people and building your gym) feeds into kink (watching my clients willfully go under for the cock-milker 5000), which makes them more obedient, which rolls back into the gameplay. great stuff. could be a free demo for a real-time horny game, should you choose to pursue it.
THIS IS SO HOT WHAT THE HELL
Dude. Fuckin'... bravo, man. In one fell swoop, you've brought together peerless kink writing, pulse-pounding gambling, and a hypnotic tie-in that makes my stomach all fluttery and my brain release the good chemicals and holy shit dude this is so goddamn fucking good
I'm SO glad you got this in 2 minutes before the deadline. It's the best kink game I've played so far, and my only complaint is that there isn't more of it. More characters, more interactions... hell, dude, this could be a banger hypnokink multiplayer game if you wanted to expand on it. Add a selection of characters, write some custom dialogue when each of them zonks the others, pop up some spirals on the losing players' screens when they're getting zonked...
This could become hypnohorny Liar's Bar, dude. I'm actually excited about this. Any chance I could reach out about expanding on this, on my own or as a joint effort?
(also the writing is so fucking good and i want to know where your writing experience comes from so i can drink from the same well, the way you describe everything subtly from the player's PoV and how being tranquilized feels and the naga's eyes and dfghdjfgdhjf it's SO good)
equally shocked that this is the first true puzzle game i've come across, and that it sucked me in as much as it did
the possession mechanic is a beautiful way to tie the theme into gameplay. and the... changes to the characters as we use them, pushing them around and whatnot, is a great way to tie that back into kink. automatic high score on the harmony rating for that inspired bit of design :>
getting feedback from people without hypnosis kinks is so goddamn cool you have no idea
it's genuinely one of the first times anyone outside the community's looked at my work, and that gives a bat all the warm fuzzies ^w^
thank you for your kind words. i had no idea it was your first game jam too -- now i'm even more proud to have supported a fellow twine enthusiast first-timer ^w^
ok but why does the movement in this feel so goddamn good
This is a very fun little demo. Use of the little-known face-punch induction is a delight, and there's something deeply satisfying about slowly bringing the club under our control. For a month, this is crazy good -- given a couple months for filled-in zonk placeholders, different types of guests, little bits of challenge like stealth, it could be genuinely great.
we love games that canonize hypno through their mechanics in this house
Very fun concept. Surprisingly solid pathfinding on the drones, and the progressively revealing map is a nice touch. My only complaint is that pickups could be a bit more common (my little dudes die quickly, leaving me helpless to their concerningly un-brainwashed friends), but maybe I just need to git gud.
Thank you so much!
I'm deeply grateful for opinions from the non-hypno-susceptible crowd. Hearing that my writing stands up, even when the semi-interactible-hypno-file gimmick doesn't pan out, is a great relief.
Also appreciate the love for the QoL effects. Those were all very last-minute, and very much made in the spirit of "ughhhh, do I really have to do this," so it's always nice to be reminded that the answer is "yes, people will use them, it will be worth it."
Deeply honored that you'd even considered returning. If you have any endings you enjoyed, or any you thought could've used some more work, I'm all ears ^w^
..I swear that wasn't a bat joke.
Okay so this concept fucks hard.
I could absolutely see myself getting lost in this. The concept of zoning out to the music, losing myself in the simple, repetitive task of hitting notes, is maybe the best idea I've seen in this jam. And the pieces are almost there. The spirals are great and the music is bumping. Given a bit of love, this could legitimately be the most hypnotic game I've ever played.
The main thing that stops it, that could be changed, is the position of the dots.
I want so badly to stare into the center of the spiral, hit the notes on beat, and lose myself in the rhythm. But the notes force me to look away, and that takes me out of it.
Luckily, this seems like a simple problem to fix. Maybe instead of riding the rims of the spiral, the dots could grow brighter and brighter in the middle until they flash on beat? You could even add a little skill expression: four places for dots to show up, corresponding to WASD, so that we have to hit the right key to hit the note. That little bit of immersion, the demand for a little bit of brainpower, would do an excellent job at keeping my attention off of absolutely anything else.
The vertical flashes also take me out of it a little. Having them track our timing is great -- doing so by pulling my eyes away from the center is just unfortunate. Maybe instead of a vertical row, the whole screen flashes when you hit a note?
Even more -- maybe the whole screen flashes, and a subliminal pops up in the middle. The closer we are to the beat, the clearer the subliminal. The better you are at keeping beat, the stronger the subliminals become, which zones you out further, trapping you into focusing more, making the subliminals even stronger, which zones you out further, which...
...anyway >///>
Excellent concept. Excellent, excellent, excellent concept. You're on the brink of greatness here, and with a little more polish, I think you could legitimately make a hypno classic.
My three suggestions, so far as they matter, would be:
Maybe there could even be some progression throughout the song. Note streaks build up subliminals around the outside, maybe?
...man, this is a fun concept.
So... this is really, really good.
It's the third game so far that shifted me from the "game jam review mindset" to "sit down and enjoy a game" mindset. The service-oriented drone theme and the comfy, cozy, simple service game are a match made in heaven. The characters were a delight, the world was subtly conveyed, and you implemented multiple senses of progress (upgrade chips, more dialogue, more features) to keep the experience fresh. It's also an incredibly polished game -- little sound effects, mantras that shift based on your chip choice, and a veritable buffet of little snippets of praise. The fact that the end screen gives you more praise depending on how you did is the cherry on top. Good gameplay, good polish, and great harmony between themeing and gameplay. Very, very, very good work.
If you continue to develop this -- and I hope you do -- the one thing I'd request is the ability to switch drones in the middle of an action. Currently, I can swap seamlessly during movement, but if I click on a destination (customer, food desk, charger), I'm locked into that action until I complete it. I got around this by moving as close to the destination as possible without clicking on it, but that seemed more metagame-y than intended behavior. Fix that, extend the story of this (really quite interesting) world, and you've a cozy game I could easily see myself losing hours in.
...more than the hour I already lost, anyway.
Drone is happy. Drone is a good drone. Drone is grateful for such a wonderful game ^w^
so i got addicted to this holy shit
I could compliment legitimately a dozen things about this -- the stat building, the short-but-effective character writing -- but I'll just say that your grasp of hypno writing is PHENOMENAL. Little snippets like "made the bat look way too close for way too long" or "trap her in a tunnel of light" hit so hard, and so often, that they became the main draw of the game. I wanted to get all the endings, because I could see all the writing. I wanted to gather all the thralls, so I could see how we entranced them.
This game held me longer than literally any other game in the jam, and it's all thanks to the writing. You absolutely fucking nailed it.
(Also, the mechanic of luring thralls to your lair and draining them for less and less until you get one final boost is vv good and resonant and again reinforced by REALLY GOOD WRITING HOLY SHIT)
This put my mind into "let's play a fun ass game" mode instead of "let's review a game jam game" mode.
For something developed in a month, that is a significant achievement.
The framing is really good. Seeing snippets of the characters between runs, tying progression through the dream to acquiring the sleeping pills, tied the narrative and gameplay halves together nicely. And the gameplay was good as well -- fast, reactive, with plenty of upgrade options. That, plus the amount of effort that went into different map designs, kept me entertained for FAR longer than game jam submissions usually do.
If I had one critique -- damage is really important in roguelikes. The fact that the arrows are so hard to see, and that their damage sticks around for the rest of that floor, was frustrating at first. Eventually, I figured out how to play around it, but that's the thing -- it felt more like playing around it. Clearer contrast between the arrows and the background would make damage a lot more predictable, and probably would've led to me completing the game quite a few runs sooner.
Not that I'm complaining. This was great fun, and an astounding amount of effort for a one-month project. If you choose to develop this further, I will most certainly follow it ^w^
super good writing out of nowhere, wtf
u are doing us former warriors kids PROUD with this one
absolutely love the concept. the one thing i forsee being tricky is writing all (7 choose 3) endings. that's the exact forking problem that led me to simplify my twine; if you could pull it off, it'd be an absolute HELL of a feat.
as it is, this is very good. great aesthetic, and i love how you seamlessly integrated the link text into the description ^w^
will definitely be adding a good ending if I ever find the time, aaaaaaaaaaaaa
I'm glad there was some degree of separation. The fantastical nature of the mind control, combined with the very clear step-back and reset buttons, hopefully helped with that. I'll do my best to replicate that in the future.
Thank you, truly, for sharing your experience. Yours is a perspective I've never gotten before, and looking back on it, I definitely should've sought it out sooner. Thank you for your time; thank you for your kind words; for your advice, your assistance, your ability to guide my goals towards the future ^w^
(also jumping in and out of rooms deadass might still be bugged, it's supposed to put you back where you would've been if there was no encounter here, but it's entirely possible that this is broken lmao. will give it a closer look; thanks for the heads-up ^^)
oh yeah there is ZERO obligation to 100% this game, it's literally 1.5 great gatsby's long, do NOT force yourself through that if you don't want to lmao
Your experience is pretty much what I'd expect most people's to be. I'm so glad you enjoyed the endings you saw; I'm glad you liked my game ^w^
(Also -- I didn't make it super clear, but the rooms and enemies rearrange every time you restart! This can make restarting a better option for exploring the endings, especially if you get an unlucky roll the first time around.)
First off: I'm deeply honored to get such an in-depth review. Especially from someone who's not into hypnokink. The fact that you pushed through, even when the game started to slip, and still thought to leave this deep of a review means the world to my first-time-game-dev batto self ^w^
Second: I'm so sorry the game brought out bad memories for you. If it's okay to ask -- do you think this should've had more warnings than it did? My usual audience is very focused on hypnokink, and tend to have a much higher tolerance for CNC/bad ends, so I've got a very large blind spot here. I hope it wasn't a bad experience. I'm really grateful that you brought this to my attention.
Third: the audio. I'm so glad you liked it. Particularly the switch in music around Iana. Using words to change the context of the music was a happy accident (first-time dev things), but it's something I'll shoot to replicate in the future.
Fourth: willpower system. You correctly identified that it doesn't really have a point in gameplay, and that's definitely something I'd like to improve on in future projects. Though I'm quite tickled to hear about that little emergent gameplay moment. As a non hypno-kinkster, you might be amused to hear that the primary function of this was kink -- some people specifically get off on stat drain, which might explain (but not excuse!) why the system is so flimsy. Good critique, and one I'll revisit for future games.
Fifth: navigation. This is really useful feedback. The structure of the game is actually a looping hallway with rooms on both sides, but I DID NOT do a good job of communicating this. As such, I'll probably patch in a map sometime (in the surveillance room?) to make everything clearer. Good observation!
Sixth: the safe... yeah, my adventure game-addled brain got the better of me here. The combination can be found by combining the numbers found in the books (hint: "people need to read more" in the notepad). I think only one person has gotten this without a hint. Definitely a point of improvement in the future.
Seventh: good ending. This is something I've heard from a lot of people, enough that it's objectively a failure on my part. Part of me wants to blame time -- the current "escape" ending was finished approximately 18 hours before the submission deadline -- but the other part of me says I should've signaled this more clearly. If I end up doing a big patch, an actual good ending will be the first thing I add. Thanks for the reinforcement; sorry for misleading you!
And last off: hypnosis.
You're entirely correct. "Hypnosis," as portrayed in 95% of hypnokink, is magical mind control with fancy window dressing. As someone who enjoys actual hypnosis, this is always a source of slight friction for me. Actual hypnosis is much more about gently guiding the mind, convincing the active focus to withdraw as the passive focus comes to the forefront. At least to my understanding. Unfortunately, this is impossible to illustrate, so all hypnosis in media is just magic glowy mind control. And since 95% of hypnokink comes from people seeing hypnosis in media...
So yes, this is not actual hypnosis. Far from it. I'm glad that made it feel safer for you, and apologize deeply for any bad memories or feelings this dredged up. Without wishing to pry, if you've any ideas for how I could've labeled this better, please let me know.
In conclusion: thank you so much for your opinion. You've given me a lot of insights I haven't gotten before, and given my game a hell of a lot of time of your own volition. I'm glad you liked the writing; I'm glad you liked the audio; I'm deeply grateful for such deep thoughts on my first game.
YO IT WORKS LET'S GOOOO
ngl, i giggled when i first saw this game and got really disappointed when i couldn't play, but now i CAN and i can balance sixteen dildos on the world's most robust dick and it's GREAT
very fun concept. made me laugh. made me spend more time than i probably should've playing it. extra points for dropping near the side is a great way to balance away my leaning tower of dildos at the center. good, great, perfect game-jam type stuff
jesus christ i was NOT prepared for the sound effect when my grand creation entered barry for the first time
man is a goddamn champion and honestly we're lucky to work with him
i'm fascinated by the space bending code and/or magic involved in making sure barry can take the tip each and every time. like. this game seems more complicated than it is on the surface, and i'd love to hear all the struggles that went into making that work
This has great polish. Like. Serious, professional-level polish. I slipped from my "reviewing a game jam game" mindset to my "playing a real game, for fun" mindset without ever really noticing. Good transitions, solid sound effects, and the ever-so-satisfying bleep of clearing a row managed absolutely hammed my dopamine receptors. Well done.
(I'd also like to shout out the fact that the blocks tell you how they form combos. Really fun aha moment, and the point at which the gameplay really clicked for me.)
While very much a demo, this is also very much a solid concept. Gameplay loops that naturally integrate the horny stuff into gameplay are hard to come by, and this process of investigate-discover-succumb very much accomplishes that. The interface is also quite good -- it's a charming Gameboy-style aesthetic that works very well.
From the way you've described it -- finding differences and piecing together clues -- it sounds like you've got very fun plans for this game. If you develop it further, please do let me know. It has the strong potential to be quite good :>
also props for squeezing this in 17 seconds before deadline
we respect that level of edging in this house
what is this genuinely fun, high-quality game doing in my silly horny game jam wtf
This is shockingly high-quality. From the little wobble of the text on the menus to the gentle clinking of the glasses to the sine-wavey flow of liquid, every aspect drips with polish. And that's not to mention the gameplay. The sheer, tetris-like satisfaction of bouncing a round bottle into another, into a test tube, into brewing my potion and seeing the number go up, was concerningly compelling. To the point where I'm tempted to go back and play more after finishing this review.
I think I'm going to go back and play more after finishing this review.
Sans the naughty bits, this could legitimately be a good-ass mobile game. Screw that -- with the naughty bits, this could legitimately be a good-ass mobile game. Simple, effective, and addictive gameplay loop, with a bit of fun context to spice things up and progression to keep it all fresh. Very, very, very good.
i have NEVER seen a text game like this before
very very creative, and an excellent base to expand on, should you continue the project :>
if you do, i'd echo Strawberry Fox's request for an engagement meter. flirting with strangers after every interaction strikes great fear in my socially awkward heart, and as much as i enjoyed the exposure therapy here, a little bit of clarity would help me engage with your game even more ^w^
also, "the final goal: cuddling after finishing" gave me a giggle
very very based
Solid gameplay loop! There's plenty of polish that you could apply -- outlines on the font, CGs for the "how it went" cases -- but at its core, you've got a very solid concept here. Would love to see it explored. The twin genres of "sex toy building game" and "horny store simulator" are woefully underpopulated, so an entry that fits in both is quite valuable indeed :>
also that options screen gave me a giggle
actual hypnosis in the hypno game jam lets fuckin go
This was very solid! Short and sweet, and with some interesting induction methods that go beyond the usual prog relaxation stuff. Left me feeling pleasantly hazy, especially after I went through both routes. My only suggestion, among the pleasant haziness, is that you might want to outline or drop-shadow the text to make it easier to read. That little bit of clarity would greatly enhance the trance experience -- particularly when I'm drifting and want nothing more than to just... sit back and let the words roll in.
(also, bonus points for safeword flower! that's something i don't see in a lot of kink games, ESPECIALLY hypno games, and i deeply appreciate you for adding it. even if i don't use it -- and i didn't -- it makes going into trance feel a lot safer ^w^)
This was... strangely charming?
Like. Don't get me wrong. It's definitely a kink game. But it's a more realistic look at kink; at how two partners might balance each other's interests to better enjoy each other's bodies.
In a game jam full of non-con, hypno, and wild kinks, it was honestly quite refreshing to see this realistic take. Hearing the wife say that she's not that good at this, but she wants to get better, was a moment of genuine wholesomeness amongst all the horny :>
Sprinkling in little bits of ahem engaging content through the safehouses was an inspired choice. It's a struggle for all NSFW devs to integrate the smut with the gameplay, and that little bit of progression and reward did so quite nicely. Could very easily be expanded on with more magic, purchasables, and progression to make a solid entry even better!
this is so much more in-depth than it has any right to be wtf
i was genuinely enjoying the gameplay of this deckbuilding sex simulator
alternating between in and out cards, using the switch mechanic for flexibility, gradually building a deck and balancing the tension received versus tension gained, the exponential storm of impending orgasm cards to finish off the round rather than immediately cutting to the victory screen
why is it so intricate
why is it so good
