itch.io

This is still a favourite of mine that I think about regularly, and I’m happy to see so many recent comments on it. For a small game that’s nearly 10 years old, I’m pleased to know it’s out there making people think!

I was wondering about this as well. James shared this in the wrap-up post:

Reviewing Submissions As the jam isn’t ranked, there is no official ratings period, or requirement that people look over submissions. In fact, with almost 700 games submitted, looking through them is a daunting task. If you have time, please consider browsing through the games and picking a few to read and review.

Itch has a built in ‘Submission Randomiser’ for the jam, which keeps track of games you’ve viewed, and will only show you games you haven’t reviewed yet. It’s actually a lot of fun to shuffle up and read a random game.

Oh thank the gods. :laughing:

This is fantastic–nice work!

Thanks! :D

I was wondering this too – thanks for asking about it!

Thanks!

Withered versions of the plants would be awesome for future updates, if you’re still looking for suggestions. :)

Hello!

Does alt text on images count towards total wordcount?

Full author list: Stewart C Baker, Phoebe Barton, James Beamon, Kate Heartfield, Isabel J. Kim, Sara S. Messenger, Nacarat, Natalia Theodoridou, M. Darusha Wehm, and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor

Thanks! :D

Thanks for the comment!

Heck yeah.

Thanks! And yes… we are all Allen Edgar Poet, sometimes. lol

Thanks! :)

This was sweet, sad, and well-written. I love the way you’ve structured it, as well. Well done!

Hello!

This says it’s an anthology, but I could only access a single game (with Mirka and Maria). Are there other games, or am I just misunderstanding “anthology”?

I liked this also. Very nice!

I found one (likely?) typo, just as a heads up: “But enough talkin”

Thanks! :)

This is a fantastic—well done!

This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the comments!

The ending is kind of abrupt. I wish I’d had enough forethought to plan it like you suggest, but while maybe my unconscious was doing it that way in real life I just ran out of time. lol

Thanks!

Thank you for playing, and I’m glad you found it to be realistic! (Although of course not glad you have to deal with that in real life–it’s no fun!)

I used to experience extreme social anxiety when I was younger, and while I have worked out ways around it, I’ve started to realize it still affects me in more ways than I sometimes think. The game speaks to my own experience of similar situations, but I admit I wasn’t sure how it would play for others.

This was interesting, and unlike pretty much anything I’ve played before.

I wasn’t able to quite understand who all the named characters were–sometimes they seemed to be different names for the same character, and sometimes not. I’m not sure if that’s because of the 4 hour limit, or if this was a tie-in to another game (or series of game). Some of the dialogue made me think the latter, but maybe not?

I speak Japanese, and did appreciate the wordplay!

It’s actually an Android package file, designed to run on any Android device. I was able to open it in Bluestacks, which is a free Android emulator for Windows and Mac: https://www.bluestacks.com/ (But Bluestacks is kind of large, as an FYI. It goes through a gig or so’s worth of “downloading” screens after you install it.) Once you install Bluestacks, just click the “my games” button on the main screen, which is shaped like a heart, and it will give you an option to install from a local APK file.

You sould be able to install it directly on an Android device, as well, if you have one but you’ll need to enable installs from unknown sources first: https://support.google.com/android/thread/107226949/how-do-i-allow-download-from-unknown-sources?hl=en (This is generally a bad idea to leave turned on, so I’d recommend turning it off again after playing this, if you go this route!)

Thanks for letting me know!

This should now be fixed, I think. The bug was due to my misusing two if statements instead of an if/else statement on one choice, basically, which resulted in no choice showing up at all sometimes when you hit that point.

I couldn’t find a second place where it ended abruptly–only one! So I think the second time you actually got to the ending. I did my testing in the Ink IDE and totally failed to realize it didn’t show “End of story” after exporting. So I’ve tweaked the ending to make it really clear when you’ve hit the end.

Hey Leon, this was great!

I really appreciated the checkpoint system, and the list of endings. (I got quite a few, including the “true ending,” but it looks like I missed some of the deaths.)

This was highly entertaining, and reminded me in some ways of Epitaph (one of my all-time favourites). I particularly enjoyed the tone and tenor of the commentary after making a decision, which I thought was pitch perfect.

I was a little confused about the percentages after each choice, especially at first. Even once I figured out what they represented, I still wished I had a clearer way of determining my scores in the various stats. Even if the stat changes stayed on the screen a little longer, that would be helpful—at first, I actually thought I was seeing things because all I could spot was a flash of red at the bottom of the page.

In some cases, I wasn’t sure why items were at 0% and still selectable instead of being crossed out with the relevant stat being “already in shambles.”

Other than that and a few typos, I have no suggestions for improvement here. Nicely done!

This is fantastic in every way.

I was able to score half a moon, but no higher!

This was sweet and well written, especially for under four hours.

I wished there were some ways the player could affect the story, but other than that minor matter of personal taste, I have no complaints. Loved the setting and characters!

As always, it was great playing everyone’s games. See you all next year! :)

I really love the concept of this piece!

My only comments are technical and mostly involve the font and color choices.

As you continue to develop this, you might consider adding options that let the player set the font to something that’s more standard. I had some trouble with the default font. Color-wise, the purple/yellow worked okay against the blue background but when links were toward the bottom of the screen in the pink section I really struggled to read them.

Another tweak that would be pretty easy to make would be to add more paragraph breaks. Long paragraphs are less readable on the screen.

Thanks for submitting your entry! :)

Thanks for the comment! I will try to make it clearer that you’re just supposed to type “trick or treat.” I did wonder if breaking it out of the typical parser commands would be confusing.

I enjoyed this take on the singularity. Its slow pace made me reflect on what matters in our (hopefully less catastrophic) reality, as well.

I did find the “click twice” thing a little annoying, personally, although I think I understand why it’s there.

A great Bluebeard take!

Is there a way to “win”?

This was an atmospheric piece and I enjoyed the local folklore!

I did notice a few typos, and it looks like there might be a bug in one of the “keep looking” scenes, where a section about land sharks was supposed to be revealed but instead just came through, code and all, as plain text.

This was interesting and atmospheric! The ending hinted it might not be the end–is that just flavour text or is there more planned? :)

This is a lot of fun!

I haven’t managed to beat it yet, but I’m really enjoying the game all the same.