itch.io

Thanks for all the feedback. It was made by two animal lovers and it's great to hear the emotion is coming through in the story and art. 

Unique take on the pokemon style game loop. The art style all matched and got me interested in the world of derpy pokemon. 

I'm a big fan of visual novels, which made me expect there would be more choices. It felt like I was just reading a picture book with no agency to influence the story direction. If you're short on time, you can fake branching dialogue by making diamond shaped branches. Give options, respond in a way that references the choice and then converge back to the same linear story. It's less so about actual agency, but making me feel like I have it. 

Also, the main character's facial expressions and body language seemed apathetic. It's a difficult emotion to start an adventure with since if the main character isn't invested, then I don't know why I am.

Overall, the art looks great and it was a interesting linear story. 

Okay, god dam does this game look and feel great! The controls and timing are smooth and well timed, all the art looks beta quality (no place holder or unpolished assets), and the game overall just has a fun loop with mechanics that feel polished. Very impressed you managed to get a fully functioning options menu as well. Best game thus far. 

My only suggests would be small things:
- add a pause menu on esc. 

-  increase the difficultly of level 2 and 3. Level 1 was a good warm up, but level 2 and 3 felt the same as level 1. It felt like I was waiting for notes more than I was trying to time them.

 - have a tutorial with the controls. I didn't bother reading the "controls" section of the itch page. For those of us that just download and play, it's nice to have the controls in game. 

Can't say enough how fantastic this game is. It's fun, with tuned mechanics and great looking art. Well done.

The art is this game is amazing. Both the UI and 3d art were extremely polished and well done. The puzzles leveled up in complexity smoothly and I understood how to win pretty quickly. 

The level design needs a bit of work because I was constantly soft blocked when I overshot and pushed the cube into a corner. There should be a way of getting out of situation that doesn't require restarting the level. Also, it would be helpful if the grid of the grass matched the scale of the moves of the box and player character. It's hard to tell the depth and distance since when I see cube on a grid, my mind assumes that one move equals one square on the board. 

The art of this game is a show stopper and the game was enjoyable. 

Favourite game I've played thus far. The switch mechanic and puzzles are well done and you do a good job teaching how to use them before increasing complexity. Chefs kiss for the Fox craw animation. 

The puzzles are well done, but the elements are missing some color or feature differentiation. I couldn't tell the difference between blocks that couldn't be destroyed by the bear and ones that could.  Also, the level and values needed to be play tested a bit more. I donked myself into the ceiling repeatedly because of the high jump and low ceiling. 

Overall, really fun game that looked great and played well. You also hit the theme pretty well. 

Really nice water shader and art.

It felt like it was missing player feedback. Also, placing the refill station is a different area than the update station.  It took me a while to figure out that the refill station and update station were different. It would have also been more interesting if I had to go to a different spot each time for the refill. Running back and forth got a bit repetitive. 

Not bad for a quick submission and that water shader is sick!

Overall it's a really well done game. That animations and art looks great, the mechanics are fun to play with and it fits the theme quite well. 

Only suggestion is more play testing with the level design. I couldn't figure out what the critical path was and it felt like the difficulty spiked on level 1 without teaching me how to use the mechanics. I didn't know what problems each mechanic was designed to solve. 

Solid game with a polished look and mechanics that were fun!

The opening was awesome. The art and shaders really impressed me. The animation of Lester and Isabelle are insanely good for a 3 week jam with Lester's movement and animations all feeling smooth and polished.

However, there is a rather large bug that soft blocks the game once you enter the van. The controls are disabled and you're infinitely stuck in the van. Also, small thing, but it could have used a pause menu and ability to exit the game. 

Overall, the look and feel of what I could play was extremely impressive. I only wish I could have played the rest of the game. 

29th or 30th would be perfect and enough to make up for lost time.

Just sent a friend request 

Hi, I'm Karla (using my boyfriend's account). I am a 2D artist looking to join a team!

Ideally, I'd like to handle the UI and character art for a 2D game. 

Karla D.

Hi! I'm looking to join a team. Ideally, I'd like to handle the UI and character art for a 2D game. I'm open to 3D but my art is 2D based, so the character sprites I create will still be 2D regardless of the game type. Please send me a message if you have an opening. 


Thanks you!

What a beautiful well design simple game. The pixel art and level design is fantastic. Your use of colours made it obvious where I needed to go and how to progress the story forward. The story itself flowed really well and was a great use of the theme. 

Only suggestions would be to have a few obstacles,  or parts of the god that need to be collected to extend the story and game play. Also, structurally, it could use a mid point with a point of no return. You kinda have one with the transition into deeper waters, but I’m not sure what you’re leaving behind.  Adding clarity on what you’re leaving behind when you descend could help. 

Overall, a very polished well written game with a well constructed level design. 

You definitely get the award for best animation. Everything flowed so smoothly and the game felt polished. So much of the story was told visually. 

The story was sad but touching. I was hoping for a positive ending, but not all stories need one. 

The timing mechanic was really cool. At first I just thought I wasn’t clicking properly, but I got the hang of it quickly once I realized that was a factor. It added a small amount of complexity. Only suggestion would be to give a bit of guidance that the timing is a factor, because I didn’t realize it mattered at first. 

You have a gift for writing. The story flowed well and you maintained a consistent voice throughout. I enjoyed that each area had different encounters and it wasn’t repeated beats in every direction. 

Only suggestion would be to give the player more choices for responses. After I clicked on the direction, it felt like a while until I got to make a decision again. 

Overall really solid piece. I’d guess your theme is “let love find you,” or “there is more to life than love.” Was I close? 

Fantastic art work, sound design and level design. I was drawn in as soon as I clicked play. I wanted to explore all the different areas and interact with the NPCs

Im not sure if the game wasn’t finished for the jam,  if it’s a bug, or I just didn’t understand the game loop, but all I could do was collect resources and sell them. The cafe, lighthouse, court and spooky castle were all locked out and I couldn’t interact with them. On the map, it’s not clear what the game loop is and I had to figure out I had to collect and then sell things. I’d suggest adding some flashing colours to the boat first so I know I need to go there first. Then once I’ve collected my first round of resources, adding dashing colours to the shop, so I know I need to go there next. Im not sure what the third step in the game loop is because I never got to that point, but guide the player on what to click on at least for the first few minutes of game play. 

it’s a beautiful game with solid level and NPC design. Just need to guide the player on the game loop. 

Overall an interesting journey that flips between dream states and reality. I liked the mystery woven into the narrative, with only hints given and no definitive answers early on. This kept the mystery of the letter and admittance into school a constant unknown element. 

The use of bioluminescent as a metaphor works extremely well for the theme. The story starting out by describing all the ways bioluminescence can be used sets up the rest of the story. Also, casting light on the darkness of a mystery was a theme you expertly referred back to in multiple scenes. 

I was a bit unsure of a few things, which could be fixed by something like varying the colours. 

- dream state vs reality. Possibly having two different background colours would work well for this. Check out the “tag” system in twine.

- links that progressed the story vs links that are background info. Two different colours here would be helpful. 

Also, I wasn’t clear what the goal was after I discovered the password and went for a walk. I got stuck in a section I was sure where to click. 

Overall, a solid twine game, that had a nice theme which linked everything together. 

All these games look amazing. I can’t wait to play all of them and check out the stories!

The dice container will stay Red until you click the flashing button on the right that reads “use dice on…” Once the container turns black, then you can click on the dice.

Also, on smaller screens, you need to find a sweet spot for clicking on the dice, which can take a few clicks to find. 

Hope that helps 😄

One of the more original story concepts. It reminded me of Passengers, only with a galaxy wide apocalyptic event triggering the interstellar travel. Very cool. 

The beginning felt fast paced. You gave just enough context to understand the situation, but left things somewhat vague which kept things interesting. When I exit the ship, it’s an exposition dump. The story slows down here because it’s all questions and no action. My recommendation is to still keep things vague, limit how many questions can be asked, and then get to some action. 

I really liked the story concept and you did a great job of painting a vivid picture of the world. 

Fantastic story. It felt complete with good pacing. The choices gave me a feel for who my character is while still giving me autonomy to chose some direction. The style and fade effect is beautiful. It made reading easy and also added to the feel of the game.

Only thing I was curious about was what mods my character had and how they use them in their life. They seemed to assume mods were purely for employment purposes. I assumed I had one that let me type faster, or do something really boring more efficiently. I’d like to see it in action. I also want to know what the stakes are for turning down the mod application. 

Best narration thus far! 

I loved playing Before Your Eyes, and the fact that you replicated that mechanic over a weekend is ridiculously impressive. I’d love to see how you did this. Would you be able to post a link to your GitHub repo? 

Definitely my favourite play through. It felt polished with a mechanic that fits the story.  Bravo. 

Cool take on the theme. I like the set ups and payoffs. Talking to someone that gives me a knife that I can use later made my choices feel impactful. 

You’re a one person team so I think you accomplished a solid story in the time frame. Only suggestions would be to give some meaning behind why the newest member is taking the lead. Also, this elite team seems to run out of amo quickly. It would help if the player is given a choice that leads to the team needing to fight off a zombie horde, which results in everyone having low amo. Or something Ali g that line. 

Overall, solid work. 

Good use of the theme. My only suggestions would be to make it deviate more from blade runner and add some sounds to up the tension.  Like if I heard sounds that vaguely sounded like a variant getting terminated, I’d question my choices. And if that same sound was loudest at end if I chose to say it’s an android, I’d definitely feel like shit…or maybe not, because it’s vague and the player does t really know what the source of the sound is. 

I also liked the UI. Simple, worked well and easy to read. 

My favourite so in the jam. Really dope story. 

Hi, 
I'm looking really forward to this jam since narrative design is my passion, but the overview wasn't clear on a few things. I was hoping you could answer some questions.

1. Is this a solo jam or can we form teams? If we can form teams, is there a size limit?

2. Can we use unreal, unity, twine, or whatever we want, or is there limitation of the engine?

3. Is there a discord channel? 

4. Where will the theme be announced? Is it on the jam overview page, discord, or some other means? If there is no theme, is there any criteria we have to meet for the story or any guiding principal?

5. Will the judges have visual studios with C++ and C#? I've run into issues when I package my Unreal games and the people trying to play it don't have the dependencies installed, so I want to confirm it won't be an issue. 

I like that everything was a high stress environment since it helped each puzzle fit the theme of taking a breath. The games in each level were fun and the puzzles were well designed. And the art direction!!! Good lord this looks beautiful! 

There was no through line connecting each level. I suggest setting up a narrative to make it not just a random assortment of time sensitive puzzles and instead a group of connected puzzles that needed to be solved in order to achieve a greater goal. Also, surgery is more high stakes than archery, so the order of levels seemed off.  Surgery should be the final level. Something as simple as the player character is student in a elite private school that trains kids to be doctors and today is their big test. The maze is them getting to their class. Not sure how to work in archery, but you get the idea.

There also isn't much of a through line for the theme. If the game is about perspirations and staying calm, then include that shaking feature in the maze level in every level of the game to show that player characters nerves.

Also, the levels took a long time to progress, specifically level 1. Maybe consider lowering the time between start of the game and when the book comes up.

Overall great looking game and the mini games were both challenging yet beatable. Well done!!!

I like that everything was a high stress environment since it helped each puzzle fit the theme of taking a breath. The games in each level were fun and the puzzles were well designed. And the art direction!!! Good lord this looks beautiful! 

There was no through line connecting each level. I suggest setting up a narrative to make it not just a random assortment of time sensitive puzzles and instead a group of connected puzzles that needed to be solved in order to achieve a greater goal. Also, surgery is more high stakes than archery, so the order of levels seemed off.  Surgery should be the final level. Something as simple as the player character is student in a elite private school that trains kids to be doctors and today is their big test. The maze is them getting to their class. Not sure how to work in archery, but you get the idea.

There also isn't much of a through line for the theme. If the game is about perspirations and staying calm, then include that shaking feature in the maze level in every level of the game to show that player characters nerves.

Also, the levels took a long time to progress, specifically level 1. Maybe consider lowering the time between start of the game and when the book comes up.

Overall great looking game and the mini games were both challenging yet beatable. Well done!!!

Sorry, I know its an extra step, but you'll have to download Visual Studios and install C++ and C#.