itch.io

it wasn't a glitch, the goal changed and you were just lucky :)

edit: i guess i should mention it's a short game but dense with ideas so if you try to rush it you'd probably misunderstand what just happened.

(i.e you won, the "glitch" is part of the game)

putting my feelings about this attitude aside -- all i can tell you is that my first impression of this is already pretty terrible. i don't like to discourage people and i might be wrong but unless this is just a hobby project i suggest you to give up. i don't have any better feedback unfortunately and i'm not interested to hear more. best of luck

thanks for the rec! i'll download a copy to my "to read" directory so i'll almost definitely get around reading it. (the notions you introduced in your entry really made me think and i heard good stuff on Satre  so yeah i'll look forward to it)

make no mistake it's obvious that you knew what you were doing; but it's just unfortunate that it isn't accessible (although to be fair, the more you delve into tabletop rpg the higher the entry bar). still, i see a game jam as a party; and even my hardcore rpg game designer friends know that at a party you have to sometimes build things ground up to make sure everyone's on the same page or maybe demonstrate it once (maybe on the discord server). it does look like you thought about the philosophy of identity and free will (although i didn't read the referenced book); it's just a shame i didn't have the motivation to dig deeper into what you were saying there because of the instruction barrier and somewhat hastily made gameplay.

but yeah just tried to say you definitely seem experienced and so post-jam updates of this might be nice to see.

cool! i actually made my own canvas framework / engine in JS but it's always cool to see a stripped down approach as it reminds me when i only started making it

i don't hear the audio as well and the settings can't be changed.

though i really like that you made it html menus and stuff, either i don't recognize this framework or you made your own framework of no canvas which is impressive.

"this is smith. you want him to die." - best tutorial ever created

as someone who spent time as a kid playing the YuGiOh Duelist game on the GBA emulator i had no problem figuring out the game controls, rules etc.

i think your game stands out in terms of polish and fun -- it's fun (at first at least, i'll explain later) to see the stats you chose for philosophers and have the fighting be a debate. Quite polished considering the given amount of time - -from assets to mechanics, there's a lot of things all working as expected (except maybe the deck building which had some menu items that do not work)

My complaints will be mainly in that the theme is a bit tangential, and i know the gameplay is probably unfinished but it might've been better to split the efforts differently. maybe save the deck building for later? -- just so that the core gameplay will be fun for more than a single run. i got bored on the second game already since the mechanics are simplistic but most importantly -- slow paced. so basically making the gameplay a bit more fast paced is weird and tricky thing to achieve in a card game but it really bothered me that i didn't want to play another game but wanted to read more dialogue or know more about the characters themselves. so it kind of felt incomplete in that sense. if i had to point to something technical i'd say something about the benching is really slow paced given they had a single purpose as far as i could tell. this of course can be compensated by say an effect system (like trap cards in yugioh games) but again all i'm saying is that it might be better not to introduce either benching or deck building in this very initial stages of the game.

But yeah that's not to say that the entry isn't good; i think this is a good entry that evidently one put a lot of effort into.

i liked this game very much! a combination of tasteful writing, design and theme incorporation.

the idea is nice but the problem is that the instructions are meta-instructions. it doesn't tell me how to play but how to construct the game rules; if i'm not a tabletop/card game designer this information is next to useless to me. burrowing mechanics from other games without any decent links to manuals or brief explainations really don't help.

what i'm saying is that i got instructions for making a cake recipe; but not only i'm not a chef i'm not even a good cooker; i'm just hungry

finally a native linux game! i like the retro old school style, the scrolled text jokes and appreciate this is written from scratch in c (the code style is old school too!)

the gameplay is lacking though (literally not there); but i'll definitely check the first level when published!

i like this a lot. both because i did the "no real choice" gameplay too and because for some reason the music and mundane activites really struck a chord.

(a little segway) now i know you're talking here about the game and life being simulations etc.. but i can relate to the somewhat helpless frustration that you can only be yourself and under your own circumstances etc. i guess what i'm trying to say is that the atmosphere is really convincing. that "something's missing" feeling, as if one could choose to have other thoughts than his own; it's a very effective psychological tool, as the brain can talk itself into lazinnes quite easily; yet if we don't have free will it's downright silly.  i can't choose to have the thoughts of my teacher during my exams for example. but inevitability always feels haunting if you'd stare it long enough i guess. and i think that's the feeling you really nailed down

anyway the writing was good as well -- i liked that i actually had some choice (hehe) to cut the inevitability scene short if i understood what's going on; allows the idea to sink in at different paces and so the game adapts to the player and not vice versa (which can be annoying) so really well thought. good job

glad you liked it :)

EDIT:

alright i don't know if it's because it's not a linux port but I managed to run it and some backgrounds are missing, no sound and there are some errors i told renpy to ignore.  something feels wrong as there are more images on the screenshots page than in game.

the ending was kind of abrupt so it was interesting that i had to ponder again about the significance of all the parts. i really like the insider perspective on academics and philosophy studies

EDIT2:

Just had to say this: i don't know if you're aware but you're supposed to make the game during the jam but also that it'd be related to a theme. while i can find some connection it is too slim to be the main focus i'd say, and i suspect is coincidental. if it's just posting a half-baked import to renpy of a VN you made i'm a bit disappointed; i mean yeah it is philosophy related but at least adapt to the theme.

polished entry, with a lot of components and attention to details (hurray tooltips!)

although gameplay-wise wasn't as fun as i imagined it would be for some reason (possibly i just got a bit unlucky)

Yeah it's exactly the realistic perception that is often hard to nail objectively as we ourselves get info from biased media to begin with. My specific route was with WikiLeaks (though you probably guessed so), and I chose it exactly because most of WikiLeak's controvacies ended up pretty well. A recent example actually was not too long ago when Snowden published a book on how he hesitated a lot at the time, yet his decision actually turned out pretty well.

Now of course we should consider this stuff on a case by case basis, often with complex risk analysis but I guess that's why it's hard to nail.

I know it can be hard, but thanks for a least trying to make this less political =]

The story was great but kinda annoying it boiled down to political views.

The last choice punishes me as a liberal, implying superiority of other worldviews. I kind of dislike that because the game was mostly politically neutral.

Except for that, I think the story has a lot of potential and can expand to a proper light novel / book. Good luck!

Very nice implementation. It brings to the front the inevitible future of the unfortunate yet doesn't lie about those who are partially fortunate (money can only influence so much).

well done

Well done! Really enjoyed the puzzles and combining my knowledge of logic with philosophy. The UI was less enjoyable though d:

Thanks that's pretty much what i was asking

Maybe next time when the jam isn't associated with a convention with obvious theme, revealing the theme at the beginning would be better.

@tallshrimp

Since the theme is known i guess anyone can start at his/her own pace? Or do we want to make this a more of a shared experience thingy and work in parallel during the submission days?

what is this jam?