Only the second visual novel entered to GWJ, as far as I can remember! The mystery was intricate and well thought-out, and I had fun trying to piece it together. That said, a few (constructive, I hope!) criticisms:

• The game lacks variety. It's totally understandable, given the scope you went for, but asking the same questions to seven different characters does wear a bit. If you weren't beholden to the theme, perhaps you could have had fewer characters to interview, and implemented follow-up questions depending on what you'd learned from other characters?
• The idea of needing to be careful not to ask the wrong question is a clever one; it's just that I had no idea that I needed to worry about that. With my Ace Attorney hat on, I thought I would have to click on every dialogue option available to me - it wasn't until you told me in the comments that I understood what I was supposed to do.
• Voicing seven unique characters yourself is a tough act to pull off, and it's a testament to both the writing and delivery that I could tell as many of them apart as I could - the Bard and Cleric for their accents, the Druid for her mannerisms - but some of the others are quite difficult to tell apart.
• The interface for asking questions was a little clunky; having to choose from 1, 2, or 3, and then having the textbox tell you what those options meant, isn't the most elegant solution in the world. Plus, I noticed that the voiceover reading those options aloud tended to carry on even when I'd moved on from that selection.

All in all, though, it's still an impressive entry, and definitely one of the most unique.

I really enjoyed playing this on stream! The controls have a nice level of nuance to them that makes zipping through the levels really satisfying. The visuals are basic, but functional - with the exception of the colour coming back to the world in spotches; that looks really cool - and while the sound effects are a little uninspired, the music is fantastic. I'd love to see this developed further.

I'd be surprised if we weren't allowed to use, say, the DSP-1 or the Super FX (if anyone's brave enough to try that one), but what about, say, the MSU-1? It's a chip made in the 2010s that allows the SNES to stream CD-quality audio and access up to 4GB of storage, which would make any game using it completely anachronistic, and arguably against the spirit of the jam.

There have been a few takes on the "blind navigation" idea this jam, and this is another good one. I agree with TRy Dev that it's better to be too easy than to be too complicated.

Slashing multiple enemies at once feels really cool. Unfortunately I left them alone for too long while I was focusing on the heart and when I looked back there were a few dozen of them and my framerate was somewhere in the Mariana Trench. That was fun, though!

I actually had the most fun with this after I'd seen a replay of my previous try. Having a vague idea of what the map looked like going in, and then trying to link it up with what I had seen, was a really engaging challenge. I like the visual presentation of the maps in the replays - and the replays themselves are a really cool feature.

The narration here is very nice, and having to time your movements around your heartbeats is a clever mechanic. Nice work!

The concept is quite unique, but I found having to match my attacks to the beat more frustrating than anything else. I like that the beat is tied to the music, though.

The presentation is very cute! I just wish the music weren't quite so repetitive.

The sense of humour in this reminds me of Zero Punctuation. Fast-paced, silly, and fun.

Nice presentation! I like the way that the hazards keep coming in faster and faster - it's a nice way of keeping it interesting. After a while, I had to let one limb fail so I'd have enough time to keep the others going, and then another, and then another. But don't worry, Mr. Patient! I can keep your right hand going indefinitely!

...Wait, that came out wrong.

Good, weird fun. Best line: "I'm a vegetable, not an organ! Let me out!".

The presentation here is absolutely top-notch. From the cityscape in the background to the UI, it's all great. The gameplay doesn't quite match it, but it's still pretty fun. I would've liked for it to have evolved across the five buildings in some way. One last thing is that, given that I'm playing it in the evenings with f.lux on, it was pretty difficult to tell the purple and orange blocks apart.

I love the sense of dark humour in this. "The patient passed away, doc. You're doing great! :)" got a chuckle out of me. The music's fun and the occasional announcements over the speakers are a nice touch.

Top marks all around. Clever premise that evolves over time, and it's really well presented. The lore works nicely, too.

There's no winning against those golem things. I think the two parts of this game - the warmer/colder game and the combat - are a bit at odds with each other. I really liked the Mega Drive-esque music, though.

I'm afraid I didn't get this one at all. I used the sound to point myself in the direction of the beeping, and kept moving forwards, but nothing happened. The concept is really cool, though.

Nice art and music! The dual-world gameplay was quite fun, but I think it could have been explored further. I like that you incorporated it into the boss fight, though. And the opening/closing poems are cute. :)

One last point is that the control mappings are a little odd. I'm not used to having the controls be on E, F and H - some rebindable keys wouldn't have gone amiss.

Reminds me of Surgeon Simulator a bit! In response to your questions: some sound design could really help in the surgery section - a heartbeat monitor would really up the tension. As for the lounge area, it's a nice way to change things up between surgeries, but I don't think you can expect people to become invested in the stories - they're more of an aside than an actual focal point in-and-of-themselves.

Yeah, I've had quite a few people experiencing that. It seems to be caused by the fact that I imported the normal maps with the compression mode set to "Video RAM" rather than "Lossless". I'll have a patch fixing that as soon as the jam is done.

Thanks! I've promised the team that I'm not letting any of their hard work go to waste, so yes, there will definitely be more of this!

I couldn't be a fan of the late John Bain without having an FOV slider in there. ;)

I mean this as a compliment: this game is really offputting. There's a juxtaposition between the bright, colourful visuals, the cheerful music, and the humans going "dum-de-dum" in a chipmunk voice; and the fact that you're a parasitic organism infesting and killing your human hosts.

10/10, I never want to play it again.

I spent a lot of time playing Uplink many many years ago, and this scratches that same itch. Sleuthing around and piecing the puzzle together was huge fun.

Yep, all the environment graphics are rendered in Blender, using Eevee. My computer was complaining a bit by the time I was done. 😛

wut.

I played this on stream, and decided to play on Hard difficulty. After calling a builder to mend the hole I'd punched in the wall, I went back in on Story difficulty and saw it through to the end. I really like how you aimed for the stars with this: a Metroidvania with RPG elements is no mean feat, and even though it's a little rough around the edges, it's got real heart to it. The dialogue is quite charming (ha!), too.

Great visuals and music, and a good runtime for a jam game! Would've liked to see a little more polish for things like transitioning between levels, but the important stuff is present and correct.

Thanks! The inspiration was actually a game on the Amiga called Dungeon Master. It's a fairly loose adaptation, because I've never actually played that game: I saw it in an Ashens video a while ago and the concept stuck with me.

This looks amazing! I'm not quite clear on how the custom palette works, though - could you add some documentation for how to use it? I'm also not clear on how to do map work with this...

I really enjoyed your stream, Vik! Thanks so much for playing.
No plans to bring it to mobile devices, I'm afraid.

Hi, everyone. I've added the "speedrun" tag to the game, having found myself running through it a few times today and finding a few neat ways to shave seconds off my time. This one is the best I got recorded:

I think it might actually be possible to get this under one minute, since it's possible to save several seconds at 0:40, by jumping and dashing immediately when you enter that room.

Thank you for playing! Really glad you enjoyed it.

Sorry, should have made that clearer! You control the character on the title screen. Move to the door with the arrow keys.

It's a little confusing at first, since there's absolutely no feedback to suggest that the water you're shooting is having any effect on the fire - perhaps the flames could become smaller as the fire loses "health"? A hissing sound effect could also help the player to know that they're doing the right thing.

That was hectic! Having to keep track of so many deteriorating systems reminded me a fair bit of Ultimate Custom Night (with a bit of Papers, Please, come to think of it), and it achieves the same feeling of tension.

It's a good concept, but I feel like the implementation could use a bit of work; Survibunny moves quite quickly, so it's difficult to come up with a plan on the fly, and levels tend to barely after they start, which doesn't help the flow.

We ended up playing this one off-stream. It's good, but I think aiming for so many genres in 48 hours stretched things a bit; I would've liked to see each section's gameplay be a bit more nuanced.

That's a quote for the back of the box! Thanks for playing!

Thank you! Is it a bad thing that I grin every time someone tells me our game stressed them out? :P