itch.io

Awesome scene dude! I didn't realize how much an ambient occlusion node can do for a render. What is the normal map on Material.002 doing?

What I ended up doing was keeping half note movement but allowing her to move diagonally but the player is still restricted to 4 directions. And then (spoiler) for the final key she moves to quarter note movement. Even that was almost too much so your analysis was spot on. I love your idea of adding more enemies, almost could do it Silent Hill style while still having the "main" enemy. And subsequently more genre study would be important I agree, the main rhythm grid movement ones I found are CotND, Cadence of Hyrule, and then this indie one called Steampunk Pirates. Patapon also might be good inspiration here. If there's any others you happen to remember let me know!

Thank you so much, appreciate you giving it your best shot. Honestly 5 keys might be the sweet spot, something I'll keep in mind for post-jam polish. And of course, your feedback on the prototype was golden!

thank you!

thanks for the feedback, glad the theme fit! I was constantly juggling whether the audio sync was higher or lower priority than things like smarter enemy AI or getting the assets to not T-pose, but based on this feedback I'm now thinking it should have been done first (especially with this being an homage to CotND!). In the end I really hope the idea and fun of the game still came across without it being just right, I'll make this priority #1 for post-jam polish :)

Honestly really fun, hope you keep working on this!

Here's my feedback, it's only a prototype so I'm gonna focus on gameplay:

• The mini-games were such a fun surprise, reminded me of 'The Sims' but more interactive. 
  • Delivery: Felt pretty good overall, cooldown before start and notifier where cars are entering would be nice qol features
  • Waiter: felt pretty hard, maybe color code the drink types?
  • Teacher: way too easy, I feel like making this rapid answer typing game style minigame would work better
• Characters are a bit tropey but I'm a sucker for that type of writing admittedly so that's a plus for me, almost like playing an anime. Great writing for a prototype, initial encounters got me invested in learning more.
• Time should pass when moving floors / traveling on map
• Excellent picks for the backing track(s)
• Inventory system reminded me of a 'Persona' or 'FF: X' style. Like the direction you're going.
• I didn't realize that the first interaction with the building manager was a quest so I spent 10 minutes trying to find the 6th person to trigger the second quest lol, didn't realize it was a placeholder icon.
  • 

[spoilers] Okay to follow up on my comment on your main page here, as soon as that sun kicked in this massive sense of fear and urgency came over me. I was so worried I wouldn't figure the "puzzle" out before Grandma died and she wouldn't be able to see out the window. And then it was pretty heavy when I finally did figure it out. Creating feelings like that is so hard in a game and you did it so perfectly.

Wow what a trippy, surreal, and introspective experience reminiscent of games like What Remains of Edith Finch, definitely had me in my feels. The gameplay and the song feel so tied together I love it. I went back and read your devlogs and I really do think you nailed the haphazard feeling of memories as we get older that you were going for. The sun mechanic caught me off guard in a good way and had me worried about a certain character (without spoiling it for others). I got all 27 memories but I wasn't sure if there was something extra I was supposed to do after grabbing the last one. 

Feedback: 

• The lack of map permanence does get frustrating to figure out, I still don't feel like I got a handle on what's going on, some more telegraphs to figure the system out could help. I did like how the environment seemed to change based on memories but it was really hard to get the full brunt of that effect because I wasn't sure where I was and what was changing in relation to where I was before to a point I felt like I was randomly stumbling around for 20m.
• I would really love either retriggerable dialogue or a kind of fading stack of dialogue. Sometimes I'd accidentally skip the message and couldn't go back to read it :(
• I'm not sure if I did or didn't reach the win condition so possibly disregard but some sort of conclusion would do soooo much to make the end more satisfying. Even if it's just a simple fade to black with some conclusion text and/or the character sprite. Or like maybe when you get all the memories and you leave the the room you can only enter the "final" room.

Excellent work!

Appreciate the feedback, really has me thinking.

I tried a version with quarter note movement but due to the bpm of the song it was a little more difficult to play. I recently watched a clip of Baldi's Basics and it had me thinking if it would be better if I kicked the rhythm movement and kept that only for the enemy. Similarly as you collect items maybe she starts moving faster. Whole notes -> half notes -> quarter notes -> eighth notes as you pick up items or something? I'm also debating a first person camera as well, since it fits the horror feel a bit more. Wish we had more time!

Thanks for the much needed feedback! The monster behavior is something I definitely want to improve. Now that I have the main level greyboxed and there's enough space I'm thinking of giving her chase and patrolling modes. Maybe the chase triggers after she sees you and then instead of a movement every two notes she randomly switches between moving on every note and every two notes. That along with some penalty for missing a note might make for some tense situations.

And I'm not sure if I'll have time to work on varied beat patterns but I agree that it would make things more interesting T_T

Already feels fun to me so nice proof of concept. I also like the direction you're going with art and colors. Guiding question answers:

1. Rhythm felt true to the beat but not to the actual rhythm of the song? Like I felt the keys were arbitrarily selected rather than following the actual song right around the first a -> d -> j -> k section. Controls were a bit jarring at first since I'm used to rhythm games with the keys all next to each other (i.e. 1,2,3,4)
2. Without reading your description would have no clue to parry. Attack I picked up but I found myself not really attacking as much since I was focusing on the challenging rhythm sections. Except when parrying.
3. Wasn't able get very far (82,700 score) but ramping of difficulty felt around a medium level difficulty rhythm game so feels good for me.
4. Only the sword was effective since I'm so focused on the bottom of the screen I don't notice much else.
5. Auto attack and more healing from potions (this could be contained in an easy/practice mode maybe similar to not having to strum in guitar hero easy mode)

Very charming cozy game, the combat aspect mixed with the idle/clicker mechanics feels fresh! Can't wait to see a charms page and some audio added to the game. In the early-mid game it was kinda hard figuring out the order of which candy to buy since I have the memory of a goldfish. Great job :D

Such a fun little game and very satisfying, would definitely play a longer version of this. And the art is amazing!