Gosh, how have I missed that one for the entire duration of the jam ? This is incredible.
Best utilization of that "corpses as a platform" idea. Love how varied your characters are and simulating the movement the player took before dying just take it the extra mile to place it well above the rest.
The game has two opposite goals : surviving for as long as possible or hoarding as much gold as possible before the city fall. Usually a few decades are enough for most of the population to be dead.
All my jam games are this way, I try to get something big to work and then I stapple a shitty tutorial to try and make it make sense. With mixed success.
Yup, my second playthrough was smooth sailing from start to finish. Had the priorized stats be "none" three times in a row which made the game a breeze. I was a bit sad to see that bob never come back if you reject him the second time but I guess he'll just have to try with the next valkyrie.
Of all the "afterlife paper-please" I played during this jam I think yours is by far the most polished. Really pretty game, love the ambiance and the visual for Sophie.
I was cruising along, thinking the game was rather easy until "I did not hit my quota" got me like a brick to the face, love how demanding the game is with its simple premise, especially right when I was getting complacent with my essences. Speaking of which, I think we're keeping our essences when starting a new game. Sort of like an accidental new game +. It gave me a headstart on my second playthrough.
Extremely solid entry overall, dialogues are rares but pleasing, the game doesn't outstay its welcome. I just wish complete morons would stop showing up to the gate of Valhalla right when Odin decides we're looking for geniuses.
Hey thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback !
Those conflictual goals are a byproduct of the chaotic start of the game's developement. Until very late I wasn't sure if the goal was to keep the city alive or to kill it as quickly as possible to stack the most profit. This is also why the final screen show both your total fortune as well as the number of year survived : so you can choose your favorite goal and stick to it.
"Ingredients" are a way to increase the "hygiene" of a district. That hygiene is displayed when you click on them. The lower the hygiene get and the more likely the district is to suffer a plague outbreak. The same goes for "faith" and for undead attacks. They are not stored but immdiatly spent on a specific district.
The event that add corpes add them through the same system. Which mean that X indigents simply get added to a random district as if they had just died here.
I've tried it both way, trying to min max graveyards placement to increase the speed at which the city dies and trying to keep the best district from crumbling too rapidly and I've enjoyed them both. The city dying quickly is by design : I wanted the game to feel arcady and to be played in quick session.
Anyway, thanks again. It means a lot to get such a deep response to a quite simple game.
Grave placement has been a concern from the start. At first I intended for houses to be destroyable but that was making districts harder to click on. In retrospect that was a complete non-issue.
Excellent entry all around. I'm kind of jealous honestly, we hadsimilar ideas but completely different execution.
Love how streamlined you made everything. The game is simple and responsive, nothing is useless, your implementation of the theme is hilarious. I think you have your chance at a confortable top 5.
If I had to complain I'd say that I'd like the player character to move a bit faster, and that you can get stuck by digging a grave right under another one. But that'd be peanut compared to what's there.
Really cool entry and a pretty refreshing one at that. As someone who has made the mistake of going camping in the woods under heavy rains this was a lively read.
Nice job for not making the mistake of forgetting player choices as a lot of game jam VNs often do. 4 ending in such a timeframe is quite honorable.
You've got something really nice here, I love a crunchier jam game. Your initial explanation seems daunting but everything falls into place very nicely.
Nice job for not falling in the trap of having too many citizens. Everything is so tightly packed it's kind of impressive.
Super rough visual, completely alien logic, I love what you got there.
Puzzle games made during game jam usually undershoot their difficulty so that no player get stuck, I love of unapologetically harsh yours is. I've spend minutes scratching my head at some of your levels, I love it.
I think some of your mechanics could be better explained, I wasn't always sure what state I had to be in to activate some switch for exemple. But overall this is simply great. 5/5 enjoyment, 5/5 creativity, marvelous entry.
Tombstone were sometimes placed uncomfortably far from the puzzle, making them a bit more tiresome to solve (since you have to make the journey over again each time). But beyond that what's there is extremely pleasant.
Great environments, nice simple puzzle design. Super solid entry.
The gameplay is quite simple, maybe even a bit lacking, I never felt like I was in a hurry until several days in.
Your biggest strength, however, is in sheer charm. From the hand draw animation to the delightful voice acting. This could be a minigame straight out of a redwall game. I loved every second spent staring at it.
