itch.io

At first I thought having a smoking frog GIF on this page was cheating, but it was a bit of an undersell. Lovely art that suited the story and created its own world. The feeling explored here is one that I think could use a lot of exploration. Even though it was short, I got the sense that you wanted to make the player feel the effort so they could feel the empty table in an earned way. Obviously making a dinner with a few clicks is easy but seeing the big portraits and reading their bios made it really feel like you earned something, someone. Well done!

Not offensive in my experience, I just had to look several times because I assumed it was supposed to be SKIP.

TECHNICALLY, that was two or three questions depending on your choices!!! Anyways, this particular conversation is a great one for a narrative game. Though I was torn - should I really get to replay? I was guilted into a finality, even though I asked about Buddy Holly. Die curious. 

Not much to say, just numbers. Thanks for the space.

Questioning anyone who could just sit back and watch as their appliances battled. Abhorrent. I'll admit I was sleepy and skeptical when I started playing this, but the enthusiasm carried me through. The narration was fun but just as importantly kept pushing me onwards with variation and responsiveness. The duck stuff was great. The dog stuff was great. The art was awesome. You made jokes but never sold out on the premise, and took the silliness seriously. Everyone seems to forget about that. Thank you!

Wow, I first played as a good little wizard, pious and studious. I was not expecting a report card! Then I played a bad boy and it was a completely different outcome, but both paid off exactly how I was hoping. I guess you don't always want to satisfy but here it worked. Technical preference: I always find it a bit awkward to play in a small scrolling window on the itch page and feel like fullscreen always helps.

Also, "Keep invoking" as a choice. I'm glad there were no other options because why would you pick anything else? 

Felt the exact same fog as when I played TR-49 (laudatory). The thoughtful touches on the interface made interaction for non-deducers possible: the lists, the hints, the counters, the string constructors. I wouldn't be case-sensitive in the input, but otherwise playing was smooth. Hard to bring up said influences because then it feels like we can compare, which is unfair, but the clue variety meant that brute forcing was viable. And for a brute like me that's a problem, but you can't design around such ferality.

It was a bit hard to distinguish between speakers. The card mechanic was obscure but I found it very interesting. I know that there were solutions and that I could retry and figure out things in a better way. The connection between the cards and the choices themselves could have been more clear – like the order often confused me, and there were combinations that I really thought made sense but wouldn't do anything. Also, does that say SKEP??? I know that's lots of suggestions but only because there is something here!

Complete thematic overlap aside, this was an extremely polished experience. The (3D!) intro sequence with great VO is something that would be cut from a standard entry, or at least just text. That being said, if you for a second thought you could engender any anti-sink attitude from me you were mistaken. They all deserve to pass. I don't how they were ensouled or why they're so light but I'm getting fired for passing them all. 

There was a lot working together here. One thing was the layout of a scrolling poem getting deeper and deeper in length as the seed digs. Another was the constant effort of choosing to make things happen, to make anything grow. Finally, something about "Death" being an ink asterisk (*) consumable choice felt extremely poetic. 

Until I started looping through to pull some of the narrative wires out, I refused to believe that their mission would fail. The universe was dropping hints that 1) no one seems to care if humans live or die and 2) maybe that makes it less likely for them to be destroyed. But then I remembered what humans are all about, and we don't need anyone's help to do that. Also, while playing I had the distinct impression that the last human will die in a zoo, either as keeper or exhibit. Thank you for clearing that up.

Do Shepherd's Dream of Silver Sheep? I felt like a leader and I felt like I was making hard decisions. I also felt kind of ridiculous, because I started switching preferences based on who I was talking to and then felt like that showed poor leadership. I should be confident in my choice and deal with the consequences. It worked out. What has magic really done for us?

I mean it's hard to know what to say... you did it. You made the happy mushroom-eating game and nothing is wasted. If you'll allow me – the mushroom-quaffing game. The door opening sound maybe didn't need to go that hard, is my only criticism.

My loose idea of what "quine" could mean made this quite impactful. Somehow (likely my foolish RL playstyle), I didn't quine until my first decent run and it happened right as I felt like I had a grip on the game (ironic). I kind of just sat there staring at the quine screen and then Googled "quine" and read the below comments. Awesome experience.

Hugely impressed with the art as well. Would like to say I died so many times to try and cycle through all the transition artwork, but those were just me dying normally. Still, so cool to see that kind of art in a 7 day game.

Agree with the feedback below - this was really hard to get anything going because I Got Stung By Bees Immediately. I will say that once I realized room building was free I had fun trapping skeletons in the walls, which felt thematic. Maybe start with a little building before jumping into combat to set the concept in the foreground? Loved the SFX.

The abstracted control was an elegant and economical framing. After a couple confusing deaths I understood what I could and couldn't do (I read things but not really, like most people). Figuring out the abilities was quick because death is quick. No bloating. Loved getting attacked through the frame by the cat. 

I really felt at the mercy of the original layout, but all the fixes I could imagine would slow the game down too much so I didn't mind. 

A very impressive game which triggers the classic dilemma of not knowing if missing information is hidden intentionally or not. I was able to figure many things out due to smart design and experimentation (observing, extracting, crafting and transmuting). I was NOT able to figure out how the skill tree worked, though I seemed to be able to trigger them okay. Another compliment is how confident I felt playing it – I had a sense after the experimentation period that all the information on the screen was meaningful. Maybe more importantly, the tone and style made be want to figure things out. Things slowly fell into place. I didn't get a chance to see the layers spreading, and I never understood when a creature was actually dead. Lovely floor layouts. Not sure how you did this in the time period but thank you for doing so!

This came out of nowhere but was a great (if dismal) change of pace. Beautiful presentation and decadent in the way I would imagine many hells being. I stole a towel on the way out.

Was it fun? No. But I take roguelikes seriously, and this is serious work. Felt like Twitch Plays Pokemon Solo Mode if that makes any sense. Awesome idea and execution – thank you for making it.

Really impressive and felt completely at peace and cohesive. I followed the tutorial and felt confident to actually try and make some progress. I felt like I had some collision issues where I thought I was safe but ended up taking damage, but that was the only friction. The biggest compliment is that I actually used grenades and proximity mines effectively within 5 minutes of playing. For me, that's a UX miracle.

Very snappy and I really appreciated how some rooms went wild with layouts. Had a hard time knowing when something was too big to absorb.

Very polished, and I thought the tag system was really nice, especially as UI. Was happy to see some familiar faces (bloats) and unhappy to see sticky substances. Loved the level gen differences for each segment, as well as the audio shifts. Find me in ghost mode. That's where I'll be.

I got stuck playing Magpie for too long but this was also a window into high scores for me to envy. The cascading realizations of how to actually survive were well-paced, and I wasn't able to get far enough to find the end of satisfying merging, if there is one. Lovely.

that would be cool - and something i went back and forth on. but i couldn't figure out an actual puzzle to include. thank you!

this is exactly as described, so i must ask myself why i'm so surprised. i think it's such a unique mixture of puzzle and narrative that it feels like to satisfy either the other must be compromised, but that's not the case here. i really appreciate the restraint and focus on two easily parseable people and their relatively normal days. i could imagine this conceit being deployed in any number of game tropes and as a player getting bogged down in those tropes' expectations. sheepishly, i never solved the puzzle, but you'll have to believe me when i say that i saw the path. i can't even manage one person's daily schedule, my own schedule. let alone two. very nice work!

beautiful presentation that legitimately enhanced my desire to replay. in making choices here, i really had to come to terms with how inhuman the distances and conditions in space really are. and the idea of an "accident" having an "emergency response", being somewhat taken for granted in the here and now, is completely ridiculous once you leave orbit. depressing, but awesome

the narration was absolutely top quality, and the premise seems so obvious. i will admit i started fantasizing about this presented as a jekyll/hyde disco-elysiumlike that never leaves a room, which it almost is. unfortunately, i wasn't able to actually track the variables as they never showed up in the UI (focus, resolve, influence). i was left tantalized by all these data points, coupled with the good prose and great performances, that i couldn't cobble together. 

wow, this is a serious game! at first i wanted to call out the sinister red violence card, always held, floating over my choices like the sword of you-know-what. but then so much more happened. you immediately assess the rooms and start seeing plays you can make with cards, and then each play you make changes the game in a big enough way that your plan changes, but small enough that things don't fall apart. frustrated with the ending i got, and felt like i was close to one i wanted. not enough violence cards in the world to bust into that hangar apparently, just enough to start a never-ending cycle. really impressive!

very impressive parallel tensions of identifying with the played character during their decisions, but ALSO anxious whether you, as a player, are making the "right" choices according to the twinned criteria of what you think is right, but also what the game expects. this all follows the structure of the in-game gender choices used as the spine of THIS game. lots going on! i think perhaps the best decision was to mix up the chronology, which forced me to think a little more about what kind of arc i was experiencing.  

the real strength here is managing the loop to feel lived in and monotonous, even in the first play. the signposted choices convince you that you've seen this all before, even if you haven't, which gets you in the right mindset to really think about what could destiny actually want. i hit a couple choices that were frustratingly reversed, which almost always feels bad, but the scenario kept things moving and on replay i immediately had ideas for what to try next. and then there's the secondary goal: figure out why the devil's involved in the first place. couldn't figure that one out, but i cared!

elegant presentation, especially since these types of fonts so rarely work imo. everything was in its place: the words, the light mechanic, the light scifi imagination. but you went further, and played around with a relationship in so many little ways that make this more than a click-through-the-options exercise. i thought about what to do with the photo and the camera, not even expecting a plot of play payoff. just to be satisfied with my understanding of dalby, and myself. if only we were goo that expended our life as light! heavenly goo!

not my thing so difficult to rate. the text delivery system, at least, was propulsive and i assume well-suited to the intended task

it's so important that this story starts out mentioning that the child is loved. it really makes every decision after meaningful. evocative, unfluffy writing makes it float by with a marked chilliness, which a good folk tale often inspires. curious that you think it's unfinished. you already wrote the only possible ending!

curious about the algorithmic generation, and i unfortunately got softlocked trying to prune no grown flowers about a dozen nights in

but! this game, through tone-matched art, music, and words, makes the surprising variety of things you do (flowers, glass, talking to people + animals) all feel meaningful, important, and part of something. i never figured out exactly what that something is, but i felt instant attachment to my fusings, and took care which to give to whom. the flower types were interesting and beautiful, and i wanted to make them grow longer — i did NOT neglect them — but they died :( i learned my lesson

your description of the animations/style is exactly what i was going for. thank you so much

can't say enough of how this felt like a real place. i don't know binksi very well, but the lighting changes and vertical traversal were quite magical. felt bad leaving.

awake enough to notice the subtle differences of my second run, the world gained depth despite me not clearly seeing that far in the distance. i had to look up a magpie and the image instantly refreshed my imagining of my journey to the end. pseudo-crows... i couldn't help but be wary of what they represented despite not figuring it out. i love the recognition of the NPCs in the statue.

a wonderful way to explore a very interesting topic i previously knew nothing about. ambitious for a first time with ink, you're nonetheless right that this could use sounds and images, though your descriptions are highly evocative already. would love some kind of persistent display of where i was on the calendar!

lovely presentation and you maximized every word and image, which is so important in jams. i did have trouble following the words and images into a complete story, so it didn't come together for me – but i appreciated the parts.

well played to pit the tropes of moon cycles in games (astrology, fantasy) against a real biological event. i didn't see it coming at all, and i love your documentation showing evidence for the story you told. that's not usually important but when exploring the mysteries of reality usually having the facts straight helps, like here.