The ambience is great! As others have said, it was a little disorienting to navigate; I feel like the very low resolution contributed to that a bit, since it impacts visibility. Just the darkness, or the low rez, or the maziness of the levels on its own would probably be fine, but all three combined is a bit too much, I think.
I played it through 3 times and got 3 different endings. Two were obvious losses/deaths, so it makes sense that they ended abruptly. But I also got what appears to be the "good ending," and it also ended kinda abruptly and anticlimactically, without totally explaining everything. A bit more closure would be nice. But you did a good job of providing clues as to how to get there.
(Also, with a bit of backtracking I managed to get past the door that someone was hiding behind in the docked spaceship, and there was nothing in there. I assume this is a bug?)
Overall, I had fun! Nice classic dungeon crawler experience.
Wow, this is wild. There's so much content, a truly insane amount of replayability for a jam game.
I managed to win my first run (as Vampire), which took me well over an hour, but I'll definitely have to come back to play some of the other classes & try to beat it.
It's not the first chess-based roguelike I've ever seen (that would be Chogue) but it definitely takes the concept much further.
One complaint I have is that during my first playthrough I feel like I ran into a lot of issues due to rules not working how I thought they would (the little pictures weren't always clear about certain things, the mega-pieces sometimes couldn't move how I expected them too or I had trouble moving them to a place they definitely should have been able to go, etc), but I was still able to win on my first run so it can't have been too unfair. It also took me a while to realize that enemies never make non-capturing moves, which makes the strategy much easier. But I understand that making a strong, more chess-like AI would be a big ask for a game of this complexity, especially in such a short timeframe.
The balance seems pretty fair. There were several levels where my first thought was "wow, how am I supposed to do this?" but then I figured out a way to handle things that worked out fine. That type of feeling is one of the main goals of a roguelike, IMO.
Overall, an extremely strong contender for the win!
Not entirely sure what you mean by seriously breaking your orientation relative to the game. Approaching areas entirely sideways or upside down is valid & intended for basically all areas.
Nice game. The dramatic irony at the end (seeing the "only" and being able to guess what comes next) is really good, and the atmosphere in general is on point. The jumpscares don't necessarily land that strongly, but I think that's because they're both predictable and unavoidable. I think the important characteristic of a "fair" jumpscare is that it's something that could happen at any moment, but that you're also actively trying to avoid, so when it happens it's both unexpected but also in some sense "your fault." I didn't really get that vibe in this game, since it's mostly pretty on-rails. That being said, it was still a compelling horror experience vibes-wise, and pretty novel compared to the standard "walking around in dark hallways with a flashlight" itch.io horror game formula.
The gameplay is pretty monotonous (obviously this is deliberate/thematic), although there was one particular moment where it became much more noticeably confusing/disorienting/uncomfortable for a bit. I'm not sure whether it's a specific area of the maze, or something triggered by time, or if it was like that the whole time and I'm just unobservant. But the effect was strong, whatever it was. Good work.
Beat it in 2:18 on my second try. I'm not that good at beat 'em ups, but I got the hang of it decently well & had fun. Maybe the regaining of health was a bit too forgiving, but in general I think the balance was good.
The art is great as always, and I love the setting. For some reason games that take place on a moving vehicle just hit different, even though I know that gameplay-wise it makes literally no difference. I also like how you used the tutorial setting to establish some backstory/narrative.
The presentation & polish is really good. I made it to level 18 before deciding that it's 5 AM and I'm too tired for puzzles and should sleep. Some puzzles seemed easily guessable, others required thinking, but in general the quality was good. Nice work.
Thanks for playing! This is by far my most niche game, glad at least one other person was able to get the hang of it enough to get past the first couple levels.
ROT13 hint/spoiler for the end game: Gur svany qhatrba unf "uvqqra" ebbzf abg pbaarpgrq ol unyyjnlf, gur nffhzcgvba vf gung ol gur gvzr lbh trg gurer lbh pna gryrcbeg nebhaq oyvaqyl hagvy lbh svaq gur nzhyrg bs Lraqbe. Pna'g erzrzore vs gung'f qhatrba 8 be abg gubhtu, vg'f orra n ybat gvzr fvapr V znqr guvf.
Thanks for checking out my blog, glad to see a nonzero number of people reading it. Maybe this is the motivation I need to actually start posting there again.
The Franklin expedition would definitely be a compelling setting for a game!
Surprised it works on mobile! Here's a ROT13 hint/spoiler if you want: Lbh pna'g trg cnfg gur 5gu punzore, ohg lbh pna rfpncr sebz gur rkcrevzrag ragveryl, juvpu vf gur bayl "tbbq" raqvat.
Very compelling. The re-contextualisation of familiar religious content into a horror framing is bold & interesting. The archaic language was a bit off at times (saw a couple incorrect -st /-th endings.), but I totally understand the KJV vibe you were going for and it generally works well. The atmosphere and imagery are strong, good work overall.
The art and music are nice. Good steampunk vibes. I was hoping for a possibility of failure if you make the wrong choice; it doesn't seem to be possible after a second playthrough, but that's ok. Nice seeing another game that goes beyond standard Ink (this is binksi, right?). Nothing wrong with standard interactive fiction, of course, but the great thing about Ink is its versatility in other applications as well, which binksi demonstrates.
I beat the game, despite being bad at horror games. The ambience is really good. The audio design and lighting work very well together. The fact that the game still progressed during narration is very anxiety-provoking; the brother crept into my vision while I was still stuck adding ingredients to the bait, which really freaked me out, but I was able to exit the dialogue and run away in time. It's nice to see Ink being used to compliment a more gameplay-ish game; haven't seen much of that this jam, but it really is one of the great things about it as a tool.
I enjoyed it. I like how it has a sort of folkloric/fantasy element to it in an otherwise very grounded sci-fi setting. Not really magical realism, but sort of in that ballpark. Very cute. I noticed that at least some of the modifiers (e.g. "+1 temper") had noticeable effects on the narration and outcomes. Even though one ending is obviously the intended one, the others didn't necessarily feel like "bad endings," which is nice. A solid entry overall.
Thanks for playing! We'll get around to posting the repo eventually (gotta double-check a possible licensing issue on some of the audio assets), but the short answer is we used Google MediaPipe, which provides a facial landmark recognition model that runs locally in the browser. And then just communicated blink events to Godot via the Godot-JS API. And in ink, I just made choices with the text "BLINK/UNBLINK" which get selected automatically when you close/open your eyes.
It's stated twice in the description: "The inkJam is an annual community organized jam focused on storytelling and narrative games written in ink," and then later "As long as you are using ink in a way or another, you can use absolutely anything." Plus it's in the name.
"Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr Deckard?"
Seriously though, I think that line from Blade Runner (which you're clearly referencing, of course) hints at the problems with using a supposed "normal" baseline to decide who is or isn't worthy of scrutiny, which is a particularly relevant concern these days (because of the increasing use of potentially biased machine learning for these sorts of surveillance purposes). Seems like your game pursues this idea further. I like it, it's a good use of the interactive fiction medium to make the player consider a particular idea.
This was a pretty fun platformer, albeit not exceptionally innovative. Not really sure where Ink was used, but I'll trust you. Definitely fits the theme.
A fun little narrative, which actually has a lot of variety and non-linearity to it. It has nice chaotic energy, and it's short so you can replay it a bunch and see all the different paths. Very cute. A bit of a stretch regarding the theme, but that's fine.
EDIT: Ok, I went back and played it some more and found even more content. This is arguably the most interactive of all the interactive fiction I've played so far this jam.
Regarding the gorgon, keep in mind that in theory your eyes are supposed to be closed when that text appears on the screen. If you don't open your eyes early then you're never supposed to see it. As long as you keep holding the spacebar down you should be good.
I do encourage you to give it a go some time when you can actually use the blink detection, for the true intended experience (since, like, half the levels are only challenging if you have to blink involuntarily occasionally). There's still a bit of story content you haven't seen yet, too! (though not as much as I would like, kinda ran out of time and had to cut narrative corners).
Wow, definitely my favourite so far. I like the vignette quality, and there's some very compelling imagery in there. There are lots of little details that feel significant as commentary about our world and about storytelling; Maybe I'm reading a bit too much into it in some cases, but it's definitely clear that a lot of thought went into it.
Most of the games I've played so far are "pure Ink" or close to it. I like how you extended the core inky export quite a bit, but in a way that visually compliments what is still a standard text-based game. The click-anywhere-to-continue is a nice quality-of-life feature. Making the player wait for planet generation adds an interesting immersive feeling to it, aside from emphasizing the "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" nature of humanity's existence on a cosmic scale.
Overall, 5s across the board.
Edit: Just replayed, and understood some stuff the second time through that I missed the first time, particularly some of the allusions in the "story that you may recognize". Definitely a great entry!
Good work! The premise is fun, and the dialogue is kinda Pratchett-esque (especially the "raisin debt" joke). There are enough choice points to feel engaging. Overall, I enjoyed it a lot.
Interesting theme interpretation, reminds me of the poem "Darkness" by Lord Byron. I played through a few times, but there's still things about the endings that I don't quite get (e.g. in one playthrough I chose "I'll stay and wake them" and the crew members woke but later died semi-mysteriously; in another ending, they didn't wake up. I'm not sure if this is related to a choice I made?) Overall, an interesting story and one of the more complete narratives that I've played so far in this Jam (not that I've played that many games yet, mind you).
Not super long, but the choices definitely felt meaningful & also had consequences that were reasonably predictable within the logic of the story, so it wasn't like I was just guessing. When I got the "best ending" it felt like I had earned it by making the right decisions. The restart option after deaths was also nice. The theme interpretation was creative.
Also, the "start over" button at the end seemed to be broken in some way (the story hit a dead end the second time through).
Pretty linear (I didn't really see any new content on my second playthrough), but there's a good illusion of choice on the first playthrough. The art is nice. I feel like there was a bit of a narrative gap between the protagonist's feelings about his wife/ex-wife as presented in the flashbacks vs. how he feels (and how the narrative frames her) in the intro section, but I don't know how much time is supposed to have passed between the most recent flashback and the present day, so maybe it's fine.
The concept/story is very compelling; every time I hit a dead end I was disappointed that it didn't continue further. But as you've probably noticed by now, trying to have every single choice lead to a completely different path quickly becomes untenable, since the number of dead ends grows exponentially.
You currently have a lot of endings that are "stalled due to similarity with other paths"; I think that's a good sign that you could have them merge back together (with small differences tracked by variables, e.g. maybe a confrontation takes place in a different location), which would help keep the scope manageable. But for a "first real attempt at an IF game" I'm actually pretty impressed at the amount of content you got done.
I think it's interesting that even given how simple this idea appears, there's a bit more deliberate implementation involved than meets the eye (i.e. I notice that you wrote custom JS for that blink event, even though someone less familiar with ink or not paying attention might assume that this was just an *extremely* low effort use of the existing export functionality). I mean, it's not exactly high-effort, but for what it is you did in some sense go above-and-beyond.
A focused and cohesive little scene. Seems like you see more of the core thematic content if you play the more asshole/gatekeeper-y run; I missed a lot of it on my first playthrough trying to be less invasive.
No matter how much I tried to be nice, I couldn't get an ending where the client didn't seem at least a bit annoyed at me. A commentary on how even the most well-meaning individuals in these sorts of gatekeeper roles are still part of a systemically flawed system, maybe?
Thanks for playing! Sorry about the blinking not working. Would you mind sharing what browser & OS you're using, in case it helps us debug the issues in the future?
I deliberately tried to keep the game output more narratively focused rather than directly explaining mechanics to the player, relying on "common sense" for decision-making. But I might as well clarify some things here for those like you who are more mechanically-focused.
Negative status effects like bruised, stressed, agitated, etc. do contribute to the overall risk of dying. Some are worse than others, but it's impossible to die exclusively of dysentery (for example). The death message attributes the death to the "worst" affliction available currently, but maintaining general health is important. So waiting to eat/sleep/warm up until you're starving/exhausted/hypothermic makes you vulnerable to dying if you then also get dysentery or a broken leg, which wouldn't happen if you were otherwise healthy.
But you're right that the bible and doppelganger event are mostly just for flavour, and it's not well balanced for variety over multiple playthroughs because I never really expected it to be played more than, like, twice.
Gur fvtvy ba gur yrggre va Cebsrffbe Fzlgur'f bssvpr vf fvtavsvpnag, naq gurer vf n eryrinag obbx va gur yvoenel pneq pngnybthr gung pna gryy lbh zber nobhg vg.
Bigger hint:
Fzlgur vf va n phyg. Vs lbh pna yrnea gurve frperg cnffcuenfr (ivn zber erfrnepu) lbh pna hfr guvf gb pbaivapr uvz gb tvir lbh npprff.
