This is like if geometry dash and flappy bird had a kid (this is a good thing lol). I like how insane the parkour is in this and the setting is really interesting! This would make a great rage bait game. If you're going to go for something like this, though, consider adding a platform that doesn't punish the player on collision so we have time to start rather than dying a few times before we can move.
Rambutane
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This was insane! Your animation and character is absolutely lovely. I love the retro environment you created with this. The hand following the mouse around as it shoots is crazy! I really don't have much to say other than I wasn't the biggest fan of the skinny vertical obstacle that would pop up- the character doesn't jump over it well. Other than that- such an amazing job! The level design was so engaging and fantastic, overall this is crazy good.
You added so many mechanics in such a short amount of time! Great job!
I love the premise of your game- I can definitely see you turning this into a short film later down the line. It's really silly yet very engaging. Your level design is great! I like how your game is turning out a lot. I think it would be great to go back in and fix some of the colliders especially on level 4- the character gets stuck on a lot of the obstacles and it makes things really difficult to play. This can be an issue with the size of your sprite and obstacles or just a collider issue.
I love how challenging it is so far in terms of how the obstacles are spaced out. Someone already mentioned it, but the character is a little too "floaty", which makes it very difficult to play and get to the actual end goal.
I'd recommend making your obstacles bigger. The size of your sprite is fantastic! Scaling up the assets you have will help it feel a little more consistent, especially visually.
Viability: The game plays very well. It is very straight forward with its decision making, and I appreciate the lack of black and white answers. Even if things seem like they'll go south, you keep the reader engaged with the lack of hard-set choices.
Presentation: The format of your text is great. It's easy to follow and although there is a lack of some visuals, the way you have altered text is great. I love how certain words are customized depending on what they are (for example, the text "glow" literally glows). I think its a nice touch to feeling engaged within your narrative. However, more visuals would really accentuate the thematic of your game. The story is very clearly one of tension and fighting, so some interesting visuals could be at play, whether they are metaphorical or glimpses of the fight that we get to witness.
Theme: The theme is clear. The decision making fits well with the battle at hand. It would be interesting to have a timed mechanic attached to your theme. Battles require you to have sharp thinking, so implementing a timer would be a great way to accelerate your game.
Engagement: The narrative really pulls the entire game together. Its description and obvious knowledge of fight scenes really puts the audience in a chokehold. Your strength is narrative- keep pushing it. You have a very solid flow within your story. I would've loved to see more mechanic wise, even if it was as simple as implementing a timer. Obviously some visual approaches would be great too, even if they are simple or just "sprites" that we can see pop up on screen. Sound effects like the whooshing of a sword when popping into a passage would be amazing and very gratifying!
Overall, I'm excited to see where this goes! Your narrative is already fantastic. There is clearly a lot of passion in this project.
Viability: The mechanics are smooth and introduced well, that being the inventory system and re-playing in order to obtain items or unlock new endings. Enhancing your text was a great decision and it is still readable. However, the glaring issue I have noticed is your transitions through passages. At first I loved it- we start with waking up and immediately go into a "waking up" transition. As I continued to play, it became more of an annoyance if anything. The transition itself works and is interesting, but lower the time between transitions.
Presentation: This is one of the few times the preset black background and white text works! It perfectly encapsulates your dark encroaching theme. The illustrations you do have are ominous and visually compelling. I do, however, wish there was a tad bit more illustration just to push the eeriness. Play with dutch angles, perspective switches. I love your usage of text enhancement as well- it really plays into the story.
Theme: The game itself is thematic in spirit and execution. The descriptions are wonderful and thoughtfully written. There is a clear story and destinations. However, the endings happen a bit too fast. The "escape" ending seems to appear out of left-field as well. I do enjoy the world building that went into this, and the mechanics serve the theme well.
Engagement: I was thoroughly engaged. I encourage you to push on the horror aspects of this. You have a strong, appealing game going on and could be pushed forward with music/audio cues and more! Keep playing with it.
Overall, I really love what you have so far. It would be great to see how this could tie in with your animations in the future as well. Your animations so far this semester have all been creepy in nature- this fits very well with this. You have a strength- keep pushing it!
Presentation: Besides the lack of visuals, the presentation of the game is simple and straight to the point. This does fit the aesthetic and visual synthesis of your game. However, I encourage you to do more research into other itch.io narrative games that take this approach. There is a glaring issue of the "passage interaction" text color is way too similar to the background. The choice of this dusky blue for the background could also be pushed in future iterations. Blue is commonly associated with grief and other sad elements, but this story is more heartwarming if anything. It causes the viewer to wonder if the story will suddenly turn dark, yet, it never does.
Engagement: I feel that the engagement in this is a given. Requiring the audience to name their pet automatically brings a sense of attachment which is imperative to your gameplay and a great choice. Having it appear in future passages makes for fun gags, as well. It would be interesting to take a "Toby Fox" approach, where if you name your cat something like "cat", you get a passage that says "Now why would you do that?". Playing into the comedic and lighthearted themes of your game would make the viewer savor the experience just a bit more.
Viability: The game works as is, but what can be pushed? There are a lot of pet-caring simulators, but what makes yours different? Are there more paths you can create to maybe make the cat run away once more? Could there be more lighthearted moments? The game obviously works on its own as the nature of all narrative simulators, but consider pushing by creating a new mechanic, cat customization, etc.
Theme: The theme is adorable and very clearly lighthearted. However, the gaming market is flooded with cat-centered games. Just going on Steam and looking up "cat", there was 300+ results. This isn't to say a commonly used animal can make a game "unsuccessful", but it leaves you with a question: do you push this game or do you leave it lost in the crowd? Consider pushing your strongest themes of coziness, lighthearted nature, companionship. Something really special and unique you could add is small animated or lovely illustrated moments of your character spending time with their cat. A fireplace crackling sound could play as the player witnesses an illustration of the cat loving their new owner.
Overall, your game gets what it needs done. But what's left? Play into the strengths of the game to push it. It doesn't have to be the new Neopets, but it could be something unique and pushes all the other entries out of the water.
Viability: Your game seems to be in a testing mode at the moment, so I can understand there are a few mechanics missing/not elaborated on. For what you do have now, I am very impressed with. Your mechanics, and plan for mechanics are interesting as of right now. I really love the RPG system you're going with! I will say for the future as you work on this, it may be a better approach to not combine all the systems together. For example, having the NPC's say "meet me at the shop", and then exiting a conversation just to repeat conversations and be sent on a goose-chase may become irritable.
Presentation: I like what you're going for! The placeholders are visually impactful. The font choice is disorienting, though, and needs more work. Some of the backgrounds don't merge well with the font and seem to be causing readability issues.
Theme: The visual theme is a bit skewed. I am not sure what you are trying to go for. Narratively, I'm loving it. Your approach to existentialism, along with the educative value, is wonderful! Keep pushing this- your theme is both enjoyable and interesting.
Engagement: As of right now, things are disorienting due to how the visuals aren't cohesive and the narrative although great is being scattered in directions that seem to conflict with each other. I do, however, see what you are going for and I encourage you to make more fine-tuning and adjustments. This is going to come out great!
Overall, I'm excited for what you can do with this! I encourage you to push this further and work on it even after this class ends. You can really make something amazing out of this.
Viability and Engagement: The mechanic in your game is classic, yet fun. It seems that your "sanity" bar is missing a narrative element, however. Typically, there are narrative notifications or visuals to indicate changes happening to your sanity. It almost felt it was there for show and not for any mechanical reasons. I was tempted to go back and replay to see what could be changed, but it didn't seem like there was any incentive too because of the lack of clarity.
Theme: I would also love to see you push your descriptions a bit more. There is too many repeating phrases such as "black sludge" and "smelly". Consider using synonyms or stronger descriptions like, "the other-worldly substance" and "pungent". Other than the issues with description, your world building came around really well, especially with the help of the visuals. The space felt very interesting and almost unique in some sorts- there were multiple locations with strange interactive events.
Presentation: Your illustrations are strong! There is a variety of texture and I appreciate it. However, I would suggest pushing the perspective on some of the shots and adding more visuals to impactful moments such as "collection" moments where a new item is added to your inventory. I would love to feel the claustrophobia in the abandoned house, or even highlight the monster with a more "show not tell" approach. Introducing it in some of your images to the point where it's almost not visible to really make the audience question what they're about to get in to.
Overall, you seem very passionate about this due to the quality and length put into this. I enjoyed playing through this- I hope to see you push it a bit more! It'll really highlight some of the best parts of your piece, that being the unique adventurous quality. Great work!