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was intrigued by the quality of the screenshots and the concept of a survival-horror solo TTRPG. actually, i've never outright played a 'TTRPG' before, so this is a first.
production quality is really good on this, obviously; this extends to the included soundtrack, which is precisely what it needs to be. the story is straightforward, but i found this sense of 'knowing the beats' to be pleasant, in a 'mac-and-cheese' kind of way; same goes for the writing.
the only knock i've against this is that there isn't any indication on this page about the game being a journaling game, and i thus expected that it would be more formally mechanistic/'gamey' than it was, where this rather read like an illustrated prose-piece with some gaps to fill in by the reader. mind you, i still find this form to be really interesting and cool! but i think i am ultimately a bit disappointed about the simplicity of my interactions with the game, and would have rather known ahead of time the broad gist of the formal character of the game.
that being said, this was cool! i am excited to check out more of your work in the future.
action is a strong word the genre of the game, as it seems therețs not much you can do besides switching channels.
howețer, this is neat way of presenting the narrative at hand. i wish the writing was a bit more formal, as the text-language brought me out of the world, but other-wise i found this curious.
veeeeeeeeeery long game for a jam. i am impressed and horrified all the same. i have already sent my thoughts to one of the developers over discord, but will rewrite them here:
1. visuals are excellent, best of the jam. most every action/interaction had a sound effect attached, and this gave the game a professional sense to it. the game is polished to the nines, simply put. however, i feel that the music was, at points, an obstacle to my enjoyment of the game, for (in the one hour it took me to play the game) there was very little variation. i thought it was just one track, but the developer told me that there are variations upon reaching the ending and entering the pyramids.
2. the movement system does not suit the level design. i find that momentum-based movement systems work best for platformers with big levels that allow the player to acquire a lot of speed and don't require a lot of speed, wherrrrreas this game is designed more like a precision platformer. but it is very hard to achieve precision with the controls. it is, of course, manageable (...i beat the game), but does not result in any joy.
3. the central concept is neat. i have seen it before (most notably in this 4D puzzle game that I can't remember the name of), but it is still neat. however, it does not feel very well explored here. a few puzzles use these mechanics, but not too extensively.
4. the length was absuuuuurd, especially because of #3. i made a joke with my co-developer on THE RAPTURE... that one could easily (easily!) make a one-hour game within a game jam if they were to make a platformer...well, you have made a one hour platformer in only a few days. my problem with the length is mainly that there isn't much surprise. the third timeline added does shake things up a bit, but not thaaaat much and not for long.
5. still, there is an enigmatic sense to the design that i do appreciate. the abstract visuals and minimal explanations culminate (early on, especially) in a novel spatial-narrative sense, which was appreciated, though this attenuated as the mechanics and symbols became understood.
Neat little puzzle/strategy game of sorts. I wish there was a level after the 7 which was bigger and allowed all of the mechanics to be played out without having to introduce a new one. I feel that the design was actually the weak link here, considering that the presentation is very strong. As in, the game only acquires a few moving parts over the run of the game and it never feels substantial in difficulty or complexity. I am thinking that it would per-haps be better to explicitly make it a puzzle game, axing the randomized dice in favor of dice which are awarded to you based off of the tile you land on (i.e. 'landing on a 3 tile', or something of that sort), and making each level a Sam Loydian chess-like puzzle. As it stands, I don't feel like the mechanics allow for any momentum to be built within the player.