Thank you for playing! It can indeed be a little hard to tell sometimes how your date might react, maybe that's why Finn never made it to a second date all his life? ;p Either way, as a little help, you can always scroll your mouse wheel up or press the "back" button at the bottom of the screen, that can take you back to previous dialogue so if you accidentally mess up it's like it never happened. Hope that helps!
The meter for silences would be tricky since sometimes silence is more negative than others, but I think in a future update I'd definetly would need to make it clearer from the dialogue itself what has which effects. Also right now silence is not really coded in the way you can only afford X silences. Some silences are indeed "landmines" that will make her leave.
Oh also, the parts you need to progress to see the ending are kept upon each loop (this is uhh maybe not as clear.)Generally, if you see a different way your date can leave than left to right and you get a familiar voice to comment on it, you're doing good. You need 3 unique triggers of these (it will count down clearly on the screen) to reach the ending.
Malphas_39
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Heya, glad to hear that!
As for music or sounds, most of the time and polish went into the dialogue/the mechanics so there wasn't much time left for those. I do have access to a library of music but honestly found most of it too over the top for my taste. Maybe in a future version? ;p
I would definetly like a sound for the cracking of glass, clicking of buttons etc, music is a bigger uncertainty.
Sure! It's just a clip of the bullets being blocked by the invisible wall (atleast that is what I assume) I can't imbed the video in here, so I just hosted it on a file sharing site, let me know if you manage to watch it! https://limewire.com/d/Q2iHP#DPZ6YNmUb1
I did not reach up until the final boss as it was kind of a little frustrating having to deal with the enemies behind the invisible walls.
Next patch I'll be sure to try though, since I did like the game
As a previous comment said, a stricter timer might be a nice idea. Maybe even a custom challenge where you yourself can choose how fast the timer is giving more points the faster you make it. Clearing a level takes you back to the start menu while it might be a better idea to move you to the level select instead. I did play it from start to finish so it definetly kept my attention enough. Another idea could be "boss stages" where a boss has a certain effect on your blocks, maybe having double the blocks or swapping around the blocks with each block you click (having to search more for them in the moment to moment gameplay.)
The music was nice and I think the thing that gave the game most of it's presence. I think there's definetly potential here and would like to see more polish in the future (believe me, I know how hard it is to polish with a limited timeset as this gamejam has reminded me off personally aswell.)
Glad it helps! As someone who uses renpy a lot I kind of thought it was well known but I have to stop assuming people know the arbitrary tools I use, I'll probably mention it on the game's page aswell to help out others who might get stuck!
Silence is neither good nor bad, a bit like most things in life. Especially since the main character themselves struggles with silence it might be percieved as a more negative option. It is hinted at (a tiny bit) in the description when it mentions you'll need patience but to a lot of people letting the timer run out might feel a bit counterintuitive at points. In a way, that's also what the protagonist is feeling, that they "have to keep talking".
The hardest part for developing this was mostly making sure each path is accessible (although letting the timer run out can fix a lot of softlocks as a happy little coicidence.) and adding dialogue for when the timer runs out since it got very spaghetti-coded very fast. But those are problems for future me.
Lovely art, and just in general a fun relaxing game that does make you think enough.
I also love how the cards get added into your hand from high to low, making choosing which cards to use even more intuitive. (It could have been very easy to just program every next card in as coming from the right so that attention to detail deserves to be noted.)
Heya, first off thanks for playing the game!
As for the mechanics, there are a few sentences that have shorter variants if you don't have the required letters. Originally this was going to be a bigger mechanic but due to time limitations there are only about 2(?). When I work on this more between my free time and my main project I'd like to add more alternative replies. As for scanning the letters, thanks to another comment I came up with the idea of remembering what text you saw during your previous attempts where it'd show you which sentences become unavailable due to your choices.
Xzola (the date)'s name actually does come into play for a very small section when you talk about her work.
As for a walkthrough, if you'd like I could give one that is more detailed but for starters, when getting the choice to laugh or tell her about the witch, both will scare her off. You indeed were right to be silent there but then Xzola says it's okay to open up to her if you did not find the joke funny. You can trust her on this and just talk like normal. From there on out you get a few more options here and there during which you might want to stay silent. You'll know when you have struck gold if you can talk to her about three topics, her work, her hobbies and another topic I won't mention. From there on out it's quite likely that through some experimentation you will find another fate for your date. Witness that three (unique) times (you will know based on the dialogue you get right after it happens) and you'll meet an old friend, at around that point you can encounter the ending. (You need to have had a specific conversation with Xzola for the ending to be accessible, but don't fret, there are two ways to reach that point and you can retry as much as you need.) Also, if you reach a point you do not like and you don't want to have to wait until you loop back around, try scrolling with the middle mouse button or clicking "back". It's a standard function of renpy that allows you to go back to a previous state.
Hope that helps! Feel free to ask more questions if you'd like
Not bad! Although personally I'd have loved maybe some extra dialogue here and there. Also, the idea of adding extra dialogue to a self aware program under a time limit was a nice touch but it's a little sad that since it is only an online version that we can't do that, perhaps that's part of the point. I think while retaining it's simplicity it could definetly be possible to add more depth to the narrator.
While the spelling errors might have been a narrative element on it's own (since they are referenced in game and made fun of it just kind of made the narrator feel a lot less "real" in a sense where I'd feel sad to have them disapear. )
I think if you ever want to flesh this out further starting with creating a more likeable/relatable narrator might be key. You have a great theme, don't feel afraid to lean into it more.
The concept on it's own is really fun and alongside a lovely artstyle it is quite great! The only "note" I'd have is that it's not always clear when the gates will open or close (as far as I can tell) causing me to be cornerned right when the monster is around the corner. The flow of running away from the monster in meditation mode once you know the map a bit better is suprisingly relaxing.
Not a bad idea! In a way it kind of gave me mortol (ufo 50) vibes mechanically speaking. I did get stuck in level 3 since for some reason the cube didn't want to jump while half on top of another while before this wasn't an issue. It might also be a nice idea to instead of a full retry button that resets all your progress in the level you also have an additional undo button that would remove your latest cube (since sometimes I'd block my path with one cube and have to reset the entire level). The levels are failry short however so this is not really that big of a problem.
The "clinging" to the cubes also felt a bit strange sometimes as it did cause me to miss the timer a few times and then have to reset but it was a pretty nice feature to be able to build staircases in mid air.
Overall a nice concept.
Oh sorry for the confusion, the letters are mostly a way to gatekeep/guide you to the points required to see the ending. It's a weird balancing mix. You know you have seen the ending when the old lady shows up once more for more than a sentence. Although I'm glad the comments were of use! If anything, I'm just suprised to see so many of them, I did not think so many folks would like this game.
A nice game, I did not mind the bigger arena but it might be a good idea to have some sort of enemy indicators when they are offscreen, or perhaps when they spawn in? Because I did have to track down the enemies quite often though this was in it's own way a fight with the countdown, which might have been thematic. Killing the enemies did give a lot of time, which did never really make me feel as if I was really in much danger. Maybe how much time enemies give you could be an upgrade in itself? Not being to shoot over lava felt a bit counterintuitive, as it acted more like a wall but it was not really an issue since you can just take the bridge (especially with a lot of movement speed this is not a big deal). The music for me did cut off at around 3(?) minutes which was sad because it fit the vibe so well.
Sometimes enemies also seem to spawn behind the invisible walls? Not sure, my bullets could half of the time not hit them behind it and then half of the time they could. (I have a clip of that if you'd like to see what I'm talking about.)
All in all, this game kind of reminds me of vampire survivors but you can actually aim your weapon and add to your timer/health by killing enemies. A very fun and creative twist!
Edit: For some reason this posted three times, I should have deleted the other two
Wow. This was really well made honestly! It took me all but two levels to get used to and was suprisingly intuitive. I also think the art direction was really great and really fit everything together. There was also a suprising amount of levels that kept adding new elements that forced you to think about things a bit differently. Maybe the only thing I noticed is that for the final boss battle the gear positions seem to start out random? Sometimes it's a bit harder to dodge them after you died making you more likely to die twice in a row. But you can just wait them out usually and they go to other places so it's not really a big deal.
Thank you very much! I am so glad a lot of peopme seem to like the letter mechanics!
The way to progress might be a bit... counter intuitive. There is one alternate way your date leaves, by being pulled into a crack you created.
If you haven't seen one of them the key might be being silent every now and then (gor example, after asking about the succesful date, try staying silent) These "cracks" persist through the loops so you just need 3 unique ones. Good luck!
What a beautiful game! I am partial to games with timetravel/shenanigans in them but even when not looking through that bias this was an absolute blast to play. The story while minimal was also quite sweet and the vibes were immaculate. I could see this get expanded on over time but even now it's already a nice package.
Great game! I love the artwork, especially of the playercharacter in the bottom right and the winged customer.
The piano-food mix is a really unique idea I haven't seen so far and suprisingly intuitive.
On my azerty keyboard the a didn't work and had to be substituted for the q but this didn't take long to get used to.
I did have to restart twice because I skipped text by pressing the spacebar (I was thinking it would show the full displayed text it was typing out instantly instead of skip to the next part.)
Thank you very much! I'm glad to hear you had a good time with the game. I'd love to share my future project one day, I might just showcase a few things about it here and there in a devlog or two.
Also thank you for the bugcatch, it's unfortunate it managed to slip through the net in testing but I will patch it for after the jam.
Definetly a cool concept! In a way it's almost a small "metroidbrania" where your knowledge is what allows you to move further and further each loop. I did however encounter a bug, it seems to have to do with reading a note a little before the countdown ends. This results in the reset sound playing but the reset not happening (since time is frozen while reading notes) When you stop reading the note time advances as normal, but when it reaches zero it keeps you in the current area. This can lead to a small softlock where half of the screen becomes black since the trapdoors shut again with you on the other side but the reset button worked great and I assume letting the timer run out would also have fixed the issue.
Other than that I also really dig the player character's design! Nice work and keep it up.
Oh wow thank you very much! Was honestly not expecting much comments, let alone this soon. I'd like to expand the game a bit in my free time while not working on my main game and extra dialogue options were the first thing that came to mind for me aswell, so that might be to your liking!
I agree that right now it is a little hard to anticipate what letters to prioritize on or not depending on the route you take, although I'm not exactly sure what form that'd take. Maybe the player remembering the options they have seen if they have done a certain path atleast once?
Food for thought anyway, for which I am very thankful.
Edit: Also there were a few bugs still present that made it harder/potentially impossible to reach the ending, now that should be fixed.