itch.io

Well, that depends on how much effort you plan to invest and what exactly you want to achieve.

I don’t want to raise any false hopes about thousands of players magically appearing and helping you monetize all the time you’ve invested in development, because for that you need much more than just a good game.

But if your goal is to create a game you can be proud of and to continue building your portfolio and a community around it, then you’re already halfway there and I think Dominot is definitely worth finishing. I already liked the demo, and I’d personally love to see the full version. I could even imagine buying it for a symbolic price.

That said, I’m just one random weirdo reading this forum, please don’t base major decisions solely on my worldview. I don’t want that kind of responsibility :)

But yes, I do see real potential for Dominot becoming a full game.

Yeah, the plot was fine, I liked the surprise in the end ;)

Hi Synaut,

this is a very interesting piece of game design. It caught me from the very beginning and I played for almost two hours, which is well above my usual itch.io standard. Here’s a heap of my notes:

• At first I was worried about the CRT effect, because it usually hurts my eyes, but in your case it surprisingly works very well. No pain occurred and after a while I didn’t even notice it anymore.
• The mysterious characters are skillfully designed and all the secrets behind the game kept driving me forward. I really wanted to know what was going on. That’s a very powerful tool for keeping players engaged.
• I love the core concept, the atmosphere and the music, everything fits together perfectly.
• The tutorial felt well balanced. It introduced the basic gameplay concepts while still letting me discover a lot on my own.
• That said, at the very beginning there might have been slightly too many new mechanics introduced at once. It wasn’t overwhelming, but it did take me a moment to process everything.
• It is quite hard. I usually died on level 4, maybe once I reached level 5, but I wasn’t able to progress further. At that point I also didn’t see additional progress in uncovering the mystery, so I stopped playing.
• I found some bugs, which unfortunately appeared randomly and I have no idea how to reproduce them. Sometimes I had trouble switching to examine mode via right click. And after dying around the fourth time and restarting, I wasn’t able to place dominoes on the arm. I could move them there and back, but they wouldn’t snap into place.

That’s probably everything I wanted to mention. You have my deep respect for creating a game like this.

Hey kadrtyui!

Well, I finished it, but I’m not even sure what letters I collected, because I just picked up everything I could. I also don’t really know how I defeated the demon, since that part was still in Korean, so I just pressed random buttons until I won :) But I finished it, so I guess it works? 

Hey ab_plus, 

• I started with credits :) Then the tutorial
• First I tried to hit the enemies with the bowling ball, but after a few seconds I realized it is not very effective, so I started building towers
• I didn't realize I could hit enemies by throwing objects or protect the base with barricades
• In the tutorial I read all the text carefully

Finished. Fully upgraded. Liked a lot.

Hi CaC,

Q: Does the core gameplay make sense?
A: Well, it’s an idle game. So yes, doing quests, waiting, improving equipment, leveling up, and repeating the loop makes sense.

Q: Does progression feel rewarding or too slow/fast?
A: Actually I am not sure. In both the Tavern and the Dungeon, I didn’t really notice where I could see what I was up against. I win or lose without clearly understanding why. Yes, once the fight starts I can see the enemy’s stats, but at that point it’s already too late. So now my level is just a number with the importance I can't recognize.

Q: What features would you expect in a game like this?
A: Some stronger motivation to stay engaged. In other idle games I’m constantly rewarded by unlocking new flashy features, hoarding wealth, getting special bonuses from rebirth mechanics, etc. Here, I mostly just see tickets that need to be solved.

Q: Is anything confusing or unnecessary?
A: The number of untranslated German words is quite confusing.

Q: What would make you come back to play again?
A: Right now I see the clockwork, the engine behind the game. I understand how missions work, how to equip or sell items, etc. But as a player, I want to feel something more than an engine. I want to “drive the shiny car,” explore, take risks, crash, get arrested, that kind of feeling. Sorry if the metaphor doesn’t perfectly fit your game, but I hope you understand what I mean.

Hey KodaOps,

• First impression: Why can’t I install it via the itch.io desktop client?
• Second impression: Oh nice, I have a pony to ride! …Oh. It’s just a tiny horse. Also, everyone seems to be sliding on the grass instead of walking. Okay, I’m amused.
• Third impression: Very buggy.
  • Some people floating in the air.
  • I couldn’t swing the sword at first and I had to return to the main menu and restart the game.
  • After restarting, I could swing the sword and block, but it didn’t damage enemies, so I died.
  • Tried again, couldn’t swing the sword.
  • Restarted again, could swing the sword, it still didn’t damage enemies, but this time the enemies couldn’t damage me either.
  • I gave it a few more tries but then I gave up.

Well, bugs happen. I’m sure you’ll deal with them easily :) GL

Hi Revvo,

I'm not really into visual novels, but in your example I see two good images, just in slightly different styles, and I honestly can't say which one is an improvement (personally, I slightly prefer the first one).

So... if what drives you is a desire for recognition or a commercial success, then maybe it would make more sense to focus on marketing what you already have instead of redrawing art that is already good. But I can clearly see the passion in your work. And if you enjoy it and it’s your hobby rather than your full-time job, then in my opinion your time is not wasted. You’re learning new techniques, exploring what works and what doesn’t. You do what you like and I think that’s fantastic.

But look around. There have been more than 600 games published here in just the last 24 hours and most likely no one will ever fully reward the hundreds (sometimes thousands) of hours we put into these games. But that’s kind of our path… and our course. We’re indie game developers, and we do this because we enjoy it. And if you enjoyed those 2-3 hours, then you have my respect.

Hi! After about 15 minutes of playing, my best score is 73%. I believe that if I played for another 15 minutes, I could reach 100%, but I’m not that obsessed with winning :) I would welcome an option to choose an easier mode, where I could either make a few mistakes or which at least doesn’t include those annoying meteorite shards.

Preskaŭ dek jaroj post kiam vi eldonis la ludon mi trovis ĝin kaj venkis :) Dankon!

Hi, unfortunately the game was running poorly from the very beginning. It occasionally froze for a few seconds (for example, when switching the flashlight on for the first time), and after a minute or two it crashed completely. I tried running it again and experienced the same problems and the same crash, so I uninstalled it.

My specs: Windows 11 Pro, AMD Ryzen 7, 32 GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 6600M 8GB.

I understand this feedback may not be what you were hoping for, but under these conditions I can’t provide a more detailed review.

Thanks for playing, it warmed my heart :)

Hello Augustinas,

I played the game for about an hour, so I guess that means I enjoyed it quite a lot :)

What I really liked

• The art – it’s very nice and unique, especially the variety of strange monsters. The hand-painted style really stands out.
• The mechanics – shrinking, collapsing parts of the cave, the whole system of catching and synthesizing monsters… it feels creative and works.
• Exploring the cave using different tactics was fun.

About the things you mentioned

• Balancing – it felt absolutely fine to me. The difficulty curve, the need for upgrades to catch higher-level monsters - everything seemed fair.
• Bugs – I only noticed one minor issue: on the upgrade screen, the close button doesn’t seem fully responsive. You have to click a very specific spot for it to work.

What I would personally welcome

• A tutorial / onboarding – The instructions page is there and Mr. Evergreen also gives a few hints, but especially at the beginning I would have liked more guided introduction to the mechanics. Not through text, but through examples. For example, when reaching a narrow passage for the first time, a short pop-up animation showing the cursor drawing a line through it could help players immediately understand what to do.
• A long-term goal or purpose – I understand that the core loop is: gather resources - upgrade - repeat. But after an hour of playing, I wasn’t sure what I was ultimately working toward. Maybe this is revealed later, but since I didn’t encounter any larger objective (like defeating a threat or uncovering a mystery), I started to lose motivation to continue.
• A more intuitive upgrade system – It took me quite a while to orient myself in it, and I’m still not sure how to easily recognize the proper monster to catch (slime, skin, crystal, etc.). Maybe it’s obvious once you get used to the art style, but for me they were all just “monstery monsters,” and I couldn’t clearly distinguish their types.
• Infinibucks – I didn’t manage to find a use for them, even though the label says they serve multiple purposes :)

That’s everything that comes to mind. I really hope this doesn’t sound too critical, because the game is very cool, and I can clearly see the huge amount of work and care that went into it.

No, I actually had no difficulties at all. I understood all the mechanics right away and really enjoyed discovering new ones - like the button in the kitchen, opening furniture marked with the paw symbol, or realizing that water or a toast can hurt me :)

I would personally even welcome the game being a bit more challenging. That said, I’m an experienced gamer, so if your target audience is, for example, 10-year-old children, the current difficulty might be just right.

Holy moly, this is cute AF :D

Honestly, it’s very impressive that this is your first game project. The level of polish is way above most itch.io titles. I played it twice, collected all the bonus items, and barely encountered any issues. The only small thing I noticed is that the sound icon mutes the music but not the SFX, which is really just a tiny detail.

The controls feel clear and responsive and the art is obviously very professional. A few times I expected some objects to be solid platforms and fell through them, but it never really disturbed my gameplay experience.

So I think the game is technically excellent, but I personally found myself wishing for a bit more emotional or narrative depth — something that would give it a stronger unique identity or surprise factor. The core plot works, but... I don't know.

I’ve been thinking about some quick win that might help. A reference that came to mind was the classic Prince of Persia, where the gameplay was occasionally interrupted by short cutscenes showing the princess waiting by the hourglass or the vizier who had captured her. Those moments regularly reinforced the sense of evil and danger that needed to be overcome and gave the player a sense of purpose and urgency. It also reminded me of the early Super Mario games, where defeating the boss sometimes revealed a fake princess, creating a small twist that reinforced the feeling of chasing something just out of reach.

But as a first project this is seriously outstanding work.

Hi TheCrudeForge,

I can definitely imagine killing some time with your game when it’s finished 🙂 Unlike in your video, I wasn’t able to turn the cannon at the end of the level, so I couldn’t finish it. Everything else worked fine for me, the difficulty felt just right, and the amount of different game mechanics also seemed okay. It was still intuitive (or well guided) while being fun. The only thing is that I didn’t get much of a skate park vibe, despite the graffiti and the skateboard.

Hi Jamestown, thanks for the game! I played it... and I lost :)

But it really is a Good Game. It feels finished and basically bug-free. The art, music, enemies - everything fits together nicely. I also appreciate the navigation arrows, very useful.

Maybe it could just use some minor fine-tuning:

• Movement speed – personally, the player character feels a bit too slow for my taste, which discouraged me from giving it another try.
• Trampolines – I’d prefer if they launched me only when I jump on them, not when I just walk past. I got used to it after a while, but still found myself thinking “meh, not again”.
• Controls – combined with mouse shooting, I’d enjoy WASD controls more than arrow keys.
• Character facing – it might look more natural if the player character faced the mouse direction when shooting backwards.
• Audio settings – when I turn off the music, sound effects are still on.
• Fullscreen – a fullscreen button on the game page would be appreciated.

And that’s all. As I said, no fatal problems, just some polishing suggestions :) Keep up the good work!

Hello Mr. Awe Games :) I decided to try your game and give you some feedback. Just my personal reflections.

1. Regarding the game presentation: Yesterday I decided not to even try your game. If it was a Steam game, 352 MB is nothing, but for an itch.io project I subconsciously considered it too big and blindly closed the page in just a few seconds. Today I changed my mind just because I had a good dinner :) But if there was an interesting gameplay video on your game's page, this could have persuaded me to download it yesterday already.
2. Atmosphere: Right after starting the game my eyes started to feel uncomfortable, probably because of the static. But after sunset it wasn't just discomfort — my eyes were burning like hell from the contrast between the dark night and the flashlight. After 15 minutes of playing I couldn't stand it anymore and had to turn the game off. I think if the light was diffused and I could see more things around me, it wouldn't be so painful. And if the static was replaced with a small amount of fog or something, it could be more beneficial for both my eyes and the atmosphere.
3. The shocking moments work and scared me quite a lot :) I am just not sure whether I'm a fan of this kind of horror :) I personally prefer something more à la Lovecraft, where the evil is hidden and unknown. But if your intention is to cause people a heart attack, you are doing it right! :D
4. I am not sure what my goal in the game was, but I really appreciate the waypoints! At least I knew where to go.
5. Anyway, if I had created such a game in high school, I would be very proud of myself :) Congrats.

I hope this feedback is helpful. And good luck with your exams!

Hi kkotu,

controls are ok, as well as the atmosphere and effects, the goal is clear, but either I am playing it wrong or the game is very hard. 

• Using the sonar just once = soon death
• Both sonar modes show me exactly the same map and none of them shows me a hazardous bioactivity to avoid
• Not using the sonar at all helps, but then I often hit the walls and get decompressed, even when I keep my speed low and in green numbers

Thanks! Finished :)

No, no other problems with picking up objects. Inventory also worked fine for me. The biggest struggle I had with grinding coffee and chili. Maybe the order matters, maybe I was just grinding too fast or too slow, but this I had to do multiple times, start from the scratch and try again, before I finally succeeded.

Good luck with your thesis!

I had the same problem with the tablecloth as in the video and I experienced some other bugs with movement and the crafting table, too. 

Anyway, after few tries and restarts and a lot of help of the PDF solution (thanks for it) I am almost finished, but can't find any grass, neither in one world nor in the other. Any hint? :) 

Nice art by the way.

El juego parece prometedor 🙂 Solo que los textos podrían ser más grandes. Además, acabo de volver al pueblo desde el Bosque de Algas y me he quedado atascado: no puedo ir a ningún lado y tengo que reiniciar el juego.

I was just clicking around trying to realize what to do. And by some accident I won :D 

Hi Gspr42,

nice game you have here :) Anyway:

Puzzle clarity:

I bought some alcohol and traded it with Barfly for some items. Then I upgraded my phone, but that’s as far as I was able to get.

I assume my goal is to reach the manor. I identified three possible clues:

• The delivery boy who goes there wants some Unica. 
  • It’s on the price list, but I can’t ask the barmaid about it.
• The vet will go there in case of an emergency.
  • I thought I might be able to provoke the dog e.g. using the cat sticker, but nothing works.
  • I also considered hurting the boy’s animal to trigger an emergency, but I have no idea how to do that.
• I was told to borrow the bicycle from the vendor outside, but I couldn’t find any option to do so.

As a 90s point-and-click adventure player, I tried everything on everything, but it led nowhere. At this point, I’m stuck and frustrated 🙂

Dialogue tone and humor:

I generally prefer shorter, more focused sentences. The current dialogues feel a bit long.

For example, in the intro: “What in the cloven-hoofed hell is that in the sky?” could simply be “What the…?” — same meaning, much shorter, and it fits the lazy farmer character better.

No character is unique. All use the same style.

I haven’t noticed much humor so far.

Navigation and UI clarity:

I’m quite familiar with the old-fashioned SCUMM-style interface, although I personally prefer modern one-click-for-everything controls 🙂

Also in games where many objects are just part of the environment, I usually appreciate an option to highlight all hotspots.

Then I encountered a few UI issues:

• Sometimes the command doesn’t return to the default Walk to, so I accidentally use the same action multiple times.
• About 3/4 of invalid actions give a generic “no” response, but roughly 1/4 do nothing at all. It gives me an impression like you do not have all the interactions under control and like the game is broken.
• Texts on the Credits screen are incomplete

Overall feeling:

I downloaded the game because it felt like you were trying to do something serious — and I still have that impression after playing. That’s also why I decided to respond in detail.

Personally, I feel a bit overwhelmed by sensory input. When I entered the pub and saw four interactable characters, I immediately felt this might become difficult: too many options, too many possible combinations, and too much dialogue, while still having no clear idea what to do next.

But keep up the good work, I’m curious to see where this could go

I think the main problem is that I’m not very much into reading a lot of English text, which is basically the core of your game :) I believe that if I were a native English speaker, it would be much more comfortable for me to play it.

For example, during the first case I flipped through the story book, got scared by the number of pages, closed it, and then tried to get up from the table and do something else or go somewhere, before I realized it was actually my task to read the book and solve the riddle inside. In the end, this task was quite fun, but a simple instruction like “Read the story book and put your solution on the last page” instead of just “Click on the story book to read it” would probably do the job and spare me a minute of furious clicking :)

In the second case, I was really glad that you have the option to skip the board game puzzle, but I had to confirm it like three times, aargh! :D I also appreciate the option to show all the hotspots, that’s very helpful. But you introduce the system of working with tabs like tasks, notes, events, and some screenshot feature, and I didn’t want to try to understand any new concepts, I just wanted to solve the case. Once I learned how it works, it was OK to play, but all this could be more… intuitive? Or maybe the second case could work as a tutorial, guiding me through every screen and showing all these concepts one by one?

During the third case, I closed the game multiple times and seriously considered not continuing and I always only tried once more because I didn’t want to give up. There was a lot of dialogue and newspaper reading, which felt overwhelming for me at that point. Why does the game not accept the name “Ellie Scott” when I already know it from the beginning? (Yeah, because I wasn’t reading the texts carefully, I know, but…) And realizing the last newspaper keyword to find the hospital article was also painful. None of the three hints assigned to it helped me, so maybe it would be worth reviewing the hint system and making the last hint a clear solution?

You know, these are just ideas, I’m not sure how helpful they actually are. You should definitely collect feedback from other players too. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for this kind of game and my frustration says more about my personal preferences than about the quality of your game :) Don’t give up!

Well, I gave it some time and finished the demo, and I can see a lot of work went into it, but the gameplay was kinda frustrating. At least I could skip reading the instructions in the second case. I HATE learning board game rules, that's why I play PC games instead, goddamnit! :)

You made it easier, but my wrist still hurts… :) Had fun anyway.