itch.io

wow. i died at what i think was the final day. even though the translation was obviously compromised, i can tell this writing is funny and original, and i did laugh several times (sacrifice grandma to adramelech, not trusting humans since the virtual boy... lol). 

the character art was really top notch and the music, though i wish there was more of it, was really nice as well. sometimes you don't need to fully understand something to appreciate it. thanks.

excellent use of colour and there were some vivid descriptions that placed me well. unfortunately perhaps some of the descriptions were a bit too vivid as i was a bit lost in the few playthroughs i did, constantly staring at the vivid descriptions rather than internalizing the plot & action

the eeriness of seeing the flicker of change in response to your blinking is something else. what is normally an instinctual microreaction becomes this vulnerability, this sign of weakness that quickly supersedes clicking around with a mouse. not only that, but the light on my laptop indicating my webcam is enabled just beams with the knowledge of surveillance. lots going on here. fantastic work!

phew, this was a bit too reflective for me atm, which means good work. i thought changing the order of choices might change the outcomes, which didn't happen, but added further reflection.

this was lovely. not only was the story interesting and well told, but the choices enabled real roleplay (although to be honest i can't imagine another tsumugi not doing *exactly* what i did). 

the "ocean entity" had such a fun way of speaking, and i particularly loved: "Well... I might not be when you are right now soon, but I wanted to let you know I was now." so much character and info given through word and tense choice without feeling goofy. 

i imagine the final letter changes depending on your choices, which is a very clever finale. really good!

strong sense of mood with the 2d lighting setup - really made the most of the visuals. i had a few issues where i'd get blocked by my bait and be constantly picking it up and dropping it, eventually leading to a game over. also, part of me feels like you may have been able to keep the player in control at all times and done all narration through the cool notes system? but i'm not sure.

worked on my mac, and turned my browser into a delightful nintendo ds. very polished and the story/gameplay were integrated well. i will say i was anticipating some cruel wario ware style multi-input shenanigans but you had mercy. thank you

definitely made me existential. startling premise of darkness, and the plotting/interaction on the planet all worked to add layers to a scifi conceit in a way that propelled me to finish. the failure hint was a good touch to encourage retrying.

looking at the other posts here shows an impressive variety of outcomes. i died knifeless in my pod, which was terrifying but fair given my choices. 👍

"He was startled. Maybe I didn't think this through." moment was great. the dialogue in particular had energy and character. the delicate drip of world building worked well and if i was a little lost, it never lasted long. was picking up steam when it ended, which is i guess all you can ask for when something's unfinished. good!

Thanks! This is basically just the web export with some hacks for text progression/display, and then I plop in a couple HTML Canvas elements for the animations.

really like the pieces here. everything has intention and as you play you spiral outside of the presented info and into other ideas that are hinted at. the interactions are subtle and obscure enough to encourage real play. very nice

wow, that was lovely. not a missed word, and what an ending - just perfect. very impressive

really appreciated the quick restarts and it allowed me to finish with momentum, which for this kind of story matters a lot. good work!

i have to say, this was a delight to play. some of the best fontwork i've seen in a jam, and the presentation/flow was incredibly easy to follow. really well done

unsettling & effective. this may sound obvious, but this game really does make you think about blinking, and closing your eyes, and opening them again...

thank you! and you found a bug - likely to do with trying to export/delete data before viewing each compilation, which i forgot to disallow.

it's not often you see entries so full of life and living. and yet, still profoundly sad even before the fire, knowing it's coming. very nice

the transition into the "dream" was really smooth, and it ended at the right time, which is hard to do imo

to be honest i started out feeling a big gap between the cozy vibes and the lonely space outpost, but over time it really got there, which i think was exactly the point. excellent music helped as well.

i also had trouble getting out of the workshop but eventually made it. the enthusiastic writing carried me through, even though i knew it was thermionics the whole time...

i really felt like there was something hidden after it ended, especially with the "resign" option. and trying to put the pieces together with the game's title... i must have missed something. still, i wanted to know, which is good!

needed the screen scrolling to be a bit faster to keep up with character speed, but otherwise fun

"remember how it was"/"ponder how it is" is such a good choice. lots of interesting choices in this one, and it feels participatory. that bibliography is quite the addendum! really well done

got a consistent end of content after "You don't get to decide where you sleep." with blurple. otherwise i love the drawings, they add so much

i did it! really excellent presentation and design. i felt immersed enough to learn more and the ui/flow was clear enough that i wanted to keep trying when i failed. everything had its purpose. well done!

this starts very very angry, but from that point has a nice narrative flow that builds back to that point. i agree with the legibility concerns and liked the consistent colours

i liked the tension during the initial action scenes where i kept wondering when/if the cockroach's fabled toughness/longevity would come in, and it did! i also appreciate learning a new word, "palp". thank you.

very well done!

This midjourney stuff really messes me up - so hard to decipher intent from the art; impossible to not try and guess the source prompts. Still, this is likely the perfect type of story to pair with the images, which are definitely compelling. Playing really gave me an uncanny, queasy feeling of dreaming. Pretty powerful tbh.

Wow, what a great experience. The tone shifts between first person and the classified report was excellent (especially how the sound switched as well). I also can't be more complimentary of the art and layout, which completely brought it all together. I've also never seen "fruiting bodies" used in a not terrifying way, so that streak continues.

I think the "think harder" option incentivized me to try and craft an actual story rather than expect one, which worked. I also think the audience being little kids also made some of the gaps play well. My princess got stuck in a tree, and then got turned into one. Perfect!

For some reason this didn't work in Firefox. Got to play in Safari, though. I think you did a really good job adding compelling interactivity, especially with the digging. Everything felt interesting, if not important (which matched the laid-back tone). I also like how you paid off every action at the end.

Whenever I see midjourney art I get worried the text will be generated as well... Very impressive to have this in two languages. I think the structure of the story (not knowing what happened despite being the person it happened to, and even then not really knowing), and the choices were varied enough that it didn't feel like a linear story.

All aspects were really well done, but I especially liked the amount of depth you were able to create with binary choices in such a small space.

I think Ju/smwhr's feedback below is really helpful, but this was excellent. Each story beat and choice was interesting and meaningful, and the setting was well fleshed-out. I probably would have kept playing if there was more - I have to send my kids to a nice school.

Clear and creative. A great concept and basically impossible to not finish once, which is a real win.

Excellent illustrations, but my favourite part was putting my sunglasses on in the dark tunnel. I think it would have been a bit easier to navigate if there wasn't so much duplicated text, but otherwise everything was very reactive.

I think you did everything right except you need to make it a .zip file instead of a .rar. Thanks for checking out my game!

thanks for the feedback! the way to get the true ending is very obscure and difficult to trigger (though Studio Hazy below figured it out!) - there's a pretty big hint if you hover over the deep mode (waitlist) ending. SPOILER: it involves entering a code in the deep mode "data" tooltip.