itch.io

Yeah most of the impactful dice features got cut due to scope, if you wanna see them the design doc is linked in the game page

Really nice polish- the ink/doodle style art fit the black and white theme perfectly. Art had a really lovely charm. The audio had a lovely playfulness to it which was really fitting.

Design- I wasn't exactly sure as to why the loop/timer was necessary; I feel like the core emotion/pillar of annoyance/playfulness would have been better served if the game was presented in a more sandbox/toybox format where there was no "real" objective, or maybe they are hidden information. Also, I understand that the indicator for what can be knocked down or not was planned but couldn't make it- I felt like in certain cases the affordance for what could be knocked down or not wasn't clear. Finally, level design- representing a 3D space in 2D is really hard, and though the artstyle largely masked it I found it a bit difficult to distinguish between platforms I can stand on and ones I can't stand on. 

UI- Certain button placement (pause menu or settings for example) felt a bit random, a bit all over the place. This delivers on the theme but sacrifices usability- meaningful sacrifice for some but not all. If button placement was standardized it would've been better I think. One minor thing was button highlights- I felt like the button wasn't highlighted enough when it was already selected. If it was completely blacked out or greyed out it would've been better. 

Overall incredible game. Exquisite polish and great tone, though some mechanics I feel like can use some iteration. 

-Magnifying glass mechanic is very clean and efficient: directly revealing hidden information through this felt very intuitive

-(Bug): I couldn't move around with WASD or Arrow keys; "interacting with NPCs" also didn't happen? I was able to read dialogue when I moused them over though. Also on Level 6 the "pairing up" of townsfolk was kind of a guess since there was no narrative clue (no real dialogue when I moused them over)

-Trigger warning is always always good. Well done on that one. 

-One thing to note about heavy subject matter: I recognize that this is a game jam game and it simplifies certain elements of emotional distress  for the sake of time, but the idea of "doing okay on surface but doing Not That Great actually inside" was maybe too simplified? It delivered the message, but there is a lot of potential with this mechanic I believe, and if this was a more narrative-heavy game I feel like it would've made more sense, but the simplicity of the narrative kind of takes the potential away from a brilliant gameplay mechanic. 

Overall a great game!

Pretty damn good! The anxieties of a platforming challenge paralleled with the anxieties of talking to an old friend is a really cool concept, especially when you're trying to vertically scale a level (and how you have to scale it slowly at first vs. quickly later when actually saying hi). The falling down event is also very memorable, really nicely conveys that exact feeling when you miss the timing by just a bit. 

Writing was also pretty good. It sorta broke my heart towards the ending but the general messaging was quite solid- maybe integrate text into the platforming blocks? Wished that writing was more integrated into the level design itself.

Intro levels were pretty well constructed, faithfully following the Mario logic of "introduce a mechanic in a safe space -> elaborate on that mechanic with risk -> further elaborate on that mechanic". 

Bouncing ball to double jump felt a bit too tight on the timing, but it definitely conveyed that rushing emotion/confidence- again, conveying emotion with level design. Very very well done. 

I've learned a ton through this game- hopefully we can collaborate in the future!