itch.io

Itch was down for me yesterday so I just posted the update and a postmortem for it this morning. I think I was able to incorporate all of your feedback into the update, so it should hopefully be a smoother experience. Even though I tried to improve it, the game may still have issues with information and player deduction, particularly toward the end. But if you're still interested, give it a shot and let me know how it goes.

Thanks, that's a lot of really helpful feedback. I have some ideas that ought to provide better guide posts and help with deduction. I'll poke at it a bit and hopefully have a post-jam build up this weekend.

I liked the art, especially the characters and the time travel watch. Gameplay and decision-wise, I felt a little lost. Maybe with a follow up decision in the first scene (like, I opened the drawer: do I take it or do something else), or more/different narration to telegraph the impact of my choice. As it was, I think the disconnect between choice one and choice two made it feel like I was making decisions at random, rather than thinking through them.

Great game, plenty of good "aha!" moments. 

For me, the second room was most difficult. Probably because the clues became much more linear in submitting solutions - solving the first clue helped with the second, etc - whereas in the first room I solved the bottom clues first and everything just fell into place after. Also, I didn't realize the last clue in room 2 (the pictures and grimoire)  was all one clue, so I did a lot of second guessing where I shouldn't have.

But in the places I got stuck (that last clue in room 2 was the only place I was really lost for several minutes), once I got the solution I thought "Aha, so that's the clue I was missing!" when I checked the exhibit again. Very well done.

I just added a clarifying note to the game's page based on both your comments, thanks again.

Thanks for the feedback!

The question marks will fill themselves in as you heal wounds in the correct order.  I'd intended that process of figuring out events and the timing of different injuries to be the deduction element of the game, but it looks like I missed the mark on that. It was my first attempt at making a deduction/puzzle game - super tough and I can see there's a lot I could have done better, but I a lot learned all the same.

Yes, the game is structured as a loop. The first time it'll say "Ah!" no matter what, even if you fix all the wounds. After that the response should change to "No!" (or something noticeably different from either of those). Each time,  more info is revealed about the task at hand, as well as hints to help you complete it. For example, by starting the process again, you should immediately see a difference.

I knew I was taking a risk dropping players in with little to no hand holding. It's something I've seen and liked in past jams, but when making a looping game, maybe I should have been more explicit about what was going on at the first restart point.

And if you do see the "Ah!" screen more than once and can't progress past it, that would be a bug, so let me know.

Thanks for taking the time to play and give feedback.

(some spoilers below)

Thanks for that. I didn't realize you needed to scroll, so I thought the Pink Floyd reference was supposed to open the shop or help access Willow.

I got through but did encounter something that I'm pretty sure was a real bug at the very end. I used something that wasn't the code to unlock the safe (not exactly sure but I think it was the jewelry receipt). Because of this I was one piece of evidence short on the first murderer. On a subsequent playthrough, I made sure and used the code and was able to solve the case (in 15 days).

Cheers :)

I also got stuck with unmatched clues. I couldn't talk to Willow -- none of the clues from the group chat would match to her, maybe the bug is there?

Also, my dark mode browser extension made the text very light and unreadable. I realized and toggled it off, but just a heads up if this happens to anyone else.