Unfortunately, there seems to be something going wrong with my system (Windows 10), as I can't interact with the phone. Pressing E doesn't yield any action. I can move around fine though.

If a keyboard control is ever implemented, I'll certainly look forward to giving it a try. It looks fun!

Is this controller only? I'd like to play, but I don't have a controller, and nothing on the keyboard seems to produce any movement...

That was incredibly good. Some of the things I really enjoyed include the way you personified the robot, the cutscenes in between, and the character development of Heather. You've also got me really curious as to what happened to the robot in that long interim in the middle, but I guess that will have to stay a mystery for now. And with the amount of gameplay you put in, it puts a lot of other demos I've seen to shame. I'm looking forward to reviewing this game (I'll put it on my list and keep you posted!)

A few suggestions for things you might want to incorporate:

*More difficulty modes?  Some of the later levels took me a few (hundred) times to pass. I had to take a break in the middle, actually. Maybe there could be an "easy" difficulty with more checkpoints? Similarly, you could add a "hardcore" mode to complete the ENTIRE game without any deaths. Too challenging for me personally, but some people enjoy that sort of thing! Maybe skip the tutorial-type levels and make it unlockable after completing the normal one first.

*For the chain-climbing part, I may have missed it but I don't think we were ever told how to do so explicitly? It did take a while to figure out that I was to use the up arrow key to climb up but I did get it.

*Voice acting? Are you planning on recording an actual voice for the robot/other characters? What would seem really cool is if you could start off as the automated computer-type recording and gradually transition to a full human voice as our robot friend "grows up." I don't know if that's feasible, just an idea.

I also commend you for sticking to a project for five years - that can't be easy. Has it been an off-and-on thing, or have you worked on any other projects? In the event you have other games I'm sure those would be fun to play as well. The only sad thing about this is that somehow no one has commented yet...but I hope more people discover it soon! So in conclusion, the answer to your question is no, you're most definitely are not wasting your time with this endeavor. Given how long you've worked on it so far, I will be eagerly awaiting seeing the finished game!

Oh darn, sorry to hear it isn't working. Could you update me somehow when there's an update to patch it? I'll look forward to playing it in the future!

Would this be compatible with a regular keyboard? If not, any plans to integrate support for that? I don't have a controller, but it does look like it would be interesting to play.

I think you did very well, especially in the (unfortunately narrowing) niche of making something dark, deep, and thought-provoking without the traditional cheap horror of jumpscares. I hope to review your game in more detail before long. I hope you do well in the jam, maybe even win a prize!

It's too bad there wasn't more to it - it seemed like such a good start and so much detail for the artwork and everything for just a few actions. But maybe someday we'll have the privilege of seeing a longer game along these lines?

I'm still really looking forward to playing more of this sometime! If there's any way I can contribute to the project to help somehow (though I don't know too much in terms of code) I hope you might let me know!

That was quite enjoyable, although it made me sad that I couldn't go and play cases 2 through 5 yet. It could also benefit from a native English speaker reading it over and correcting some of the text as there are some weird/incorrect grammatical structures in places.

I was trying to play and explore this, but I couldn't seem to find a second aub. And as you mentioned, the teleport seems to bug out with only one aub so I can't use that. I couldn't see any way to progress so I've given up for now after running around the island a couple times.

Instacrash here too, Windows 10 as well. A pity.

I'd like to play your game, but every time I attempt to load it up, the game hangs instantly and crashes out. Windows indicates the program is not responding and nothing seems to be happening, even  if I wait a bit. I get the blurred screen with your logo (some text reading "Dotoyou," I think) but it will go no further. I am only on a laptop with no dedicated GPU, so maybe it's just insufficient graphics power to start or something of that nature but I've never had an issue quite like this and I've tried many other games. Do you possibly have any ideas on fixing it?

I was playing this tonight and things were going alright. Unfortunately upon interacting with the dog the interaction froze. The background kept running, with the rain pouring down, but I couldn't interact with anything else or otherwise move around. I didn't do anything particularly out of the ordinary prior. It seemed to just hang there indefinitely - it was running in the background for a long time and still nothing changed. 

It appears that there's no save mechanic either as far as I can tell. I'm running Windows 10 on 64 bit if that's of any help in tracking down the potential issue.

Cheers Ada, I will definitely be checking back and hope to play tomorrow evening!

~Arceus

I really enjoyed the game when I downloaded and played it a couple months ago! Are the updates tentatively planned for May 2 still looking like they will be ready in a week or so? I'm hoping to write a review for the game in the near future, but even if the updated version isn't planned for some time, there's certainly lots there to write about. I'll look forward to more in any case, though.

Any word from the team, then?

Oh I see, thank you.

I managed to eventually solve both "ends" (after many tries and enjoying the puzzle), but it seems I'm now stuck. At one end, through the doors with the forest/greenery, there's a closed door of some sort and a green light, while at "desert" end there's a similar sort of door with a red light.  It doesn't feel like the game is quite intended to end here, but at the same time, I can't find anything to interact with to try and continue. Any hints?

I liked the concept in general, but in some parts it did feel lacking. A lot of the English contained mistakes to the point that it was a bit tedious to try and figure out what each sentence meant.  This is rather important since the text for a visual novel is always a large component of the game and story.

Some of the illustrations also looked a bit stretched out and not as intended - I'm not sure if this is just a problem with the game window resizing them for the resolution I wanted or not. Assuming it's just a glitch, the art was very beautiful though - great job on it.

Sorry to hear that about bugs with the script! Perhaps next time it would be wise to keep a daily backup as not to jeopardize all your work if something goes amiss. That's what I tend to do with my stuff anyway.

Looking forward to the next update in any case!

I played this a while again and I'm (impatiently) awaiting the Day 1 patch! Any idea roughly when we can expected this release? And any way I can get notified?

So, I'm very much enjoying the game so far, but I think I am a little stuck. I had the first "dream" I believe (like in the last screenshot at right on this page),  and am now controlling another character looking for someone who's gone missing. Despite wandering around in the dark and attempting to interact with objects, I'm unable to see how to progress. I've got a black bead in my inventory but trying to use it isn't yielding much either. Any help or a walkthrough available for this? It's hard to see in the dark, especially without a flashlight...

The game doesn't seem to work for me in that I can't get the jump mechanism to fire at all for some reason. I can move left and right with A/D or the arrow keys, but that's about it.  Do you have any idea what the issue could be?

I was also enjoying it until it unfortunately crashed. I think the bug may not be fixed as it looked like the same sort of message.

Sadly, I wasn't able to make it that far into the game due to the slippery-style controls and falling off platforms, combined with no checkpoint prior, but it looked nice.

I really enjoyed your game and especially the music! Is it possible to listen to it or download it somewhere?

I downloaded your game when I first saw it on the homepage a few days ago, and finished it the other night. I did quite enjoy some aspects of it and it shows potential, but I think dealing with some things, mainly technical issues, made it a little more painful than maybe it should have been. I suppose it's possible that the game really does not like my particular system (which is Windows 10 Home, nothing fancy, adequate RAM and hard drive space, laptop), but perhaps it is common to others as well.

The first thing is the resolution. The graphics are stunning and even more beautiful in high definition (the native for my screen), but the game is a little laggy with everything set on highest. I was able to turn it down in the settings, but the game did not like this and kept forcing my settings back. Every time I died, had to restart (I'll explain why in a bit), or reached a new level, the resolution would go back up to 1920 x 1080. Interestingly enough, the graphics quality did stay at medium, where the default was high. It also appears that many resolutions are listed 2 or 3 times in the list - I'm not sure why.

At several points the ambient atmosphere was so dark that it became difficult to see where one was going and got a bit frustrating. Even sitting in the dark with the lights off, it was not easy to discern what was a platform and what was the abyss below. I consider my vision to be pretty good but the contrast did not quite seem adequate. Perhaps the little light emanating from the character's head could illuminate a little more? I understand you want to convey the darkness of a cavern, for example, but it should be doable without feeling like one is completely stumbling in the dark.

There is also the issue of getting stuck in several places. If you stray from the main path a bit or try something not quite right, there are a few situations in which you can find yourself unable to render any movement, or to jump. This makes it impossible to even suicide. Fortunately it does seem you have a 'load' option which restarts you to the beginning of the level, but it might be worth investigating this further or putting in a restart button with a confirm option to do so, just in case people aren't creative enough to try loading. The jump button also seemed to have issues in places, particularly if you're pressed up against a wall. It just wouldn't respond.

I was a little disappointed about the camera movement, particularly that there one was unable to adjust that, say using the mouse. I don't know if it was done to save resources or as a limitation of the game engine (seeing everything from one perspective based solely on location must save resources), but sometimes it made it difficult to navigate or to gauge distances for a jump and so forth. It also seems a bit perplexing that a game based on a free-flowing, slow-paced, exploration-oriented adventure would choose to limit your perspective to a fixed camera angle. Why not let the player rotate, zoom, etc. and explore a little more? I'm genuinely curious. That said, given that the camera was set up in this way, the choice of angles and pitch was I think close to perfect in conveying the scenery and surroundings, from being a small ant in a maze to running off into the distance. But if you went off exploring...your character would practically vanish off into the horizon.

I'm also wondering about the boat ride. That puzzle really got me for a while until I looked through one of the walkthroughs for a solution to the second light. How come the barrels providing adequate shielding, but the stack of boxes do not? It seems one is able to get behind them on the far side and crouch, so I was just wondering. It was a good creative puzzle though, and no fault of yours that I got held up on it.

Anyway thanks for sharing this game for free, hopefully you might be interested in checking out some of the stuff that I mentioned, although I'd assume you might not agree with me on all of it. If so, let me know, as I'd probably look forward to (more positively) reviewing it in the future.

Oh that's probably the issue then. It didn't happen every time I tabbed back and forth between windows, but it's quite possible that could be the culprit. I'm on Windows 10 Home, if that helps.

I did quite enjoy the game (for the most part) and finished though. It was a very interesting/different experience as to what I was expecting initially, and I liked how it surprised me. I'm hoping to review it in more depth soon.

Oh that makes more sense...seems it may require more of a time commitment than I first figured. Thanks.

I just downloaded your game and have been playing a bit. I am not sure how the New Game+ you mentioned works though. When I die and get the game over screen, am I supposed to press something? It throws me to the original screen with options 'New,' 'Load,' and 'Quit.' Selecting new just starts the game all over from the very beginning, and well, the others don't help either.

Only the dialogues. Walking around seems to work okay still. I got most of the way through the game but got stuck (not due to a glitch or anything as far as I can tell, just not sure what to do next) so I'll have to wait for a walkthrough.

Hello,

I've tried again with your suggestions, but still encountered the same problem. The dialogues flip through almost instantly, so 3 or 4 lines of text go by in a fraction of a second, without any keyboard or mouse input. Changing the dialogue speed and windowing the game didn't seem to have any effect. Restarting it does seem to alleviate the issue temporarily, so hopefully I can play through the rest in that way.

Best,

Arceus

I've tried playing your game, but unfortunately after a while the text all scrolls through very quickly whenever I examine or do any other actions on things. I restarted a couple times and experienced the same thing. I'll look forward to playing an updated version whenever this is fixed.

Greetings,

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the graphics and mechanics of your game and it was well worth tying up my internet connection for half an hour to download!

I am planning to write a review of it soon, and was wondering if you had considered adding a save feature to the game, or if I somehow missed it. I had to play through several times from the beginning as I did not commit enough time to it originally! Since you already have automatic checkpoints, I wonder if it could be done without too much effort.

Either way, I'll definitely look forward to more from you in the future.

~Arceus

Is there an issue with the download? No file size is displayed and clicking it brings up the thank you page, but no download ever starts. I'd like to play but wonder if it's an issue on itch.io's end preventing it.