Yeah I didn't get enough time to balance the rng, sadly XD. My take was life is random and you can't control what happens but you can control how you react to it.
Thank you for the in-depth review! I agree with everything you pointed out. I also wanted the audience to a bit more reactive as well but alot of things got left due to the timing.
This is the best game I've played by far in the jam. The only thing is I wish it had a more interesting mechanic other then just QTE but I think it works out as well. Besides that its an amazing experience. The animation is disturbing and the music and voice acting are on point. Amazing work!
Man, what is Aria's deal all I said was I had migraine, sheeesssh. They story is relatable, the plant trying to replace me part and the art is amazing. Good job and good luck completing the game.
The dancing is peak. I enjoyed my time with it. Like others mentioned the controls are hard but you get used to em and the freaking hallways man! In one instance they bounced me back to the start of the level!
The music was a bop and the character and animation is so cute! The thing only thing that sorta bugged me was the aiming of pumpkins for shooting. I think it would just be better if it fired from the character instead. If I am carrying around more then 1 pumpkin it was hard to say which one would get fired.
The final jumpscare did catch me off guard with the rest of the game being more atmospheric XD . The point and click mechanics are good and the story is interesting. Amazing work.
I loved all the details in this game. I love the controls feel smooth. I feel genuinely creeped out by the things happening in the game. I loved preparing 9 cups of coffee and accidently dropping a cup XD. I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the different monsters. Amazing work and I hope you continue work on this!
I have checked out your game as well. I'll play some more later before leaving a review cause I'm too scared too continue right now XD. By far the scariest game in the jam I've played so far
The had no idea what to do in the second level I tried a couple of times, explored all the rooms, tried to kill all the monsters but the rate of them spawning just didn't give me the time to explore enough to figure out what to do. Other then that the first level was amazing especially the first time you encounter the monster. It is paced exceptionally as well. The starting area is good as well, tho I was hoping for some easter egg or something when I went the wrong way. XD
The style and vibe is awesome! The story is so sad and amazing if I understood it correctly. The only thing I didn't like were the controls as I had no idea what I had to do to hide from the monster. Sometimes I hid, held q, do some random stuff in sequence and hoped it worked. But besides that overall amazing!
There are two ways to clear it. You can either get the lighter from the top of the left stairs and set fire to the areas indicated by the spot lights. Or you can get the lighter then go to the right of the stage get the bottle and then go to the left to get some cloth and interact with the host when he is chasing you.
I'm glad you liked the vibe! Yeah think I left it a bit too vague on the gameplay side but you can either go along with what the host says and let stuff happen to you, not do what he says and cause disruption or find stuff in the environment to hurt the host.
On the top of my head. Maybe before spawning you pop up two sprites like the 404 error and which ever the cannon hits that is the pal that spawns. I don't know if that will be more annoying or challenging later on with the auto clickers tho.
Beat it in like 30 min XD. What's impressive is that you made it all in a custom engine in less then 12 hours. Somehow, I can picture this as a speed runner game if you added more control on what pals you can get.
Haha XD. We noticed this error last minute and were like no way someone just solves the puzzle directly without interacting with them first XD. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
The music is awesome! The biggest issue I see is not being able to track which column you are on when it gets a bit fast. You have to memorize what is next along with inputting the current shelf. Was hardcore and alot of fun!
So, I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first. I didn't understand what to do until I read the the instructions in the game description. No music is really bad, even a simple track would have elevated the whole experience. Besides that I don't have any complaints. It's a good game with good puzzles. I wish there were more but those that were there were interesting. I don't know it it was intentional but I could just keep selling previous 7/11's after I had placed new ones so it made it a little easier XD. Besides that this is a great base to expend on. Good job.
Thank you for the in-depth look! I appreciate it alot :D. Yeah a major thing that led to some of the problems was not enough playtesting and some last min changes in the last second. To give some insight into things:
1) You are absolutely right about the item system and detection. It definitely needs some major improvements,
2) You are right about the text feeling a bit slow especially with the amount of text we have. But, clicking should just skip the typing and give you the entire text block.
3) Keeping the puzzle design simple was an intentional choice on our part as we wanted more people to experience the whole story rather be stuck figuring stuff out. But that failed due to point 1 XD. Also adding more stuff would just increase the artist's work load which was already quite alot.
And again thankyou for your insights. This helps us improve what we do in the future.
