itch.io

What a lovely message to read, and yes I would love to play it!

huh, I wasn't quite sure what to make of this, though I think I spoiled myself by skimming the comments.

This is one of the last games I've played in the jam, and one of many binksis, so I knew how to play immediately, though I would have appreciated some indicator of controls to start off.

When I read through the paintings, I think I was expecting some kind of subversion, or playing with the idea that you couldn't see the painting, only hear it described to you - but when it was played straight, I think I felt like I wasn't expecting it, since I didn't get any kind of resolution.

I may have missed something, though - the character at the end chastised me, I think I may have exited out of a painting, or paged through them quickly.

Familiar setting, and pacing of choices was nice.

I was reminded a bit of the example game "The Intercept" when I played it, and the expectation that generated in me was of trying to get out, or to achieve a goal.

Then, I realized the focus of the piece was about recalling an event. But then, I didn't feel like my choices mattered, as they either determined circumstantial properties of the event (time of day, "how" of performing the same operation) or the order of what I got the story in.

I felt like hearing the main events second-hand made me less invested in the story, especially as I couldn't identify any stakes in the immediate setting (again, my headspace was put into "The Intercept" as a ref - I found myself expecting danger/a goal, then didn't discover one.)

That said, I found the pacing of text-to-choice nice, and I never felt like I was hit by too-large walls of text; I felt like I got choices at the right timing, and there were never too many that I felt overwhelmed.

Awesome, poignant, and so, so, playable.

When I started playing, I explored my room as a result of hitting "no" to start reading the book -  I was convinced for a while that I was exploring a hidden alternate path to the game (and subsequent deaths) before realizing that beginning the dream would take me to the same place.

All the same, I was very interested in trying out every dead end and dying in some kind of dread-ridden but surprising way.

When I realized there was a way to surge forward and I was "gaining" things, it propelled me to pay closer attention and try to find an end.

Getting there was very satisfying and I felt like I earned it.

I would have loved to keep exploring hidden paths around the story - that first moment of "AHA, I FOUND A SECRET!" made such an impression, even if all I'd found was a way to delay the plot.

I loved this.

Interesting and pretty unique premise!

I understood the rules to the cooking, though I felt like I had to hold a lot of information in my head, especially with regards to "quests" given, and then recipes to make - and then introducing the portal mechanic, which I struggled to engage with directly, since I was already using most of my short-term memory for the quests + recipes.

I ended up giving up after getting the quest to get "meats of equal value", since I couldn't grok that as a quest goal I knew how to approach, and wandered aimlessly for a while before quitting. (also being unsure how best to use my 3-stack of carried items)

Was an interesting play, though I am sure that more playtesting it with people next to you will give better insights than what I dump in this textbox.

As a by the way, I appreciated the graphics. They were simple, but felt pretty fresh + nostalgic to me at the same time out of what I've played in the jam.

I caught a glimpse into the world you started to build, though I guess you ran out of time. :)

I had a hard time identifying with the interviewer since I seemed to already have a predisposition to the androids, and felt like I didn't have a choice but to be nasty about it. I guess I felt like I disliked the interviewer doubly because I had to "be" him, rather than observe him.

Still, it was a cool WIP to read/play through.

holy crap. this starts out a slow burn, but good grief is it worth it.

I cannot fathom how one person wrote this, never mind put it together in two weeks.

tiny but polished. :)

The mood was set pretty darn well with the opening lines.

Like others, I also mistook trashcans for crewmates! I also had very slight trouble identifying interactibles from the background, but I think I found most of the things I could.

that was clue enough for me - incognito worked!

fun game!

I enjoyed the simple but effective graphics and setting, and everything that looked like it should have been interactible was.

I thought the hold-to-progress didn't go as fast as it took to read many text passages (especially when it was a non-choice confirmation), but it wasn't a big deal.

When I got deeper into the puzzle, I sometimes wished that new options would open up at higher points in the dialogue tree, but I didn't have to try too hard to make the magic happen.

Also, the ambience and sfx/music worked very well and added a lot to the mood!

edit: PS. I played this because it popped up at the top of my list of "submissions that needed votes" - I noticed you'd made this with Unity, and they do have an option to export in webGL which allows in-browser plays on itch. I've found it does make a big difference for people popping by and playing it!

I could feel a love of world building in here.

I spent most of the play disoriented before I realized most of the meat was in looking in the mirror and realizing most of the "move-forward" was in that option.

The pamphlet was a very cool and unexpected moment, and I did have a strong sensation of looking into some kind of unknowable world.

I found it difficult to connect as a player with the lore (though I suppose this is less a game and more a "book", as it were,) though I got a strong sense of consistency within it - this looked like it was a lot of fun to write.

does what it says on the tin!

I have to admit that knowing what the game was about kind of took away some of the surprise of going down deep rabbit holes of repeat-actions. I did dig often and look at all the stuff I found, though. I felt a want to see what I'd dug up, to see something to show for all the times I'd pressed dig, but when I couldn't find anything in the moment, it felt like the digging was for nothing.

After I felt that (it was early on before Jello I think,) I ended up trying each of the repeat actions once or twice, but not really dwelling on them since it didn't feel like they mattered, and I'd (Walk) whenever I saw it pop up.

I enjoyed the ending stats that the game gave me, and it made me feel like my actions had more meaning than I'd thought earlier in the game.

UPDATE:

woohoo for creating things you like!

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

gah, it didn't seem to run for me after hitting "Run Reflection" and reloading a few times for good measure.

I'm running windows and on dark mode if that makes any difference. I'll try again later.

short and sweet game!

I deeply appreciated the single-scene main hub, it made me pay much harder attention to it, and I feel like I was rewarded for it too; especially when I walked into the two sewers.

Sometimes I felt like it wasn't quite clear what to do next, but Bokit was a pretty good and consistent hint system to push me along, even if it felt a little abrupt at times.

The tone of the game was very cute and fun, though I was momentarily thrown for a loop with the description of blood at the beginning, which made me think that I'd expect much darker content later on.

This was a very raw and honest piece that I could recognize - especially after having just cancelled most plans this weekend due to running myself dry on the previous one (for reasons you're probably familiar with!)

Normally I'd talk about how I'd experienced each of the sections I'd gone through, but I think that it's hard to talk about what you've made separate from the whole, and also very personal. The most I can say is that playing through your piece felt very meaningful and caused some introspection.

SPOILERS

The only thing I wondered about is how the game could have changed towards the end based on my last response - though I knew it somehow to be the "wrong" one, I decided to follow through and build the monster - then I felt instant regret; but maybe that was the purpose in the end.

The emotional spend of playing through the game gave me a pause at trying again. I might give it another shot later on.

I was not expecting to play something with this much quality and care when I read your description - "my first game".

SPOILERS:

The first paragraphs immediately set the tone for me - the disgust for the buyer, the weary sophistication of the main character, and the growing sensation that something very wrong was about to happen with the statue.

The pacing of choices and the number presented, along with the consequences felt like they were done just right. I'm an interactivity junkie, so I don't normally appreciate the longer prose between decision points, but I felt like you nailed the really tough in-between of descriptive passages along with player agency.

I also played again and again until I managed to escape. :)

Please keep making more games! You're very good at this.

I feel like I must be missing something, but I only ever made it to the not-the-worst ending.

SPOILERS:

- After getting into deep mode, I'd constantly be put on the waitlist, no matter when I entered deep mode (and generated a profile). I thought maybe I'd try using up more authentication tries and that would change the outcome, but I got the same few generated profiles.

- I wondered if I had to find something in deep mode before the error was generated, but I didn't get enough feedback that that was necessarily the right path, and maybe I was just trying to make up a goal for myself in the puzzle - the "you failed, try again" text gave me hints to get to deep mode, which I'd already found, so I ran out of ideas there and stopped.

Still, it's very intriguing and I'm sure there's more to it from the comments below. The evolving tooltips that I DID find cranked up my curiosity and my need-to-explore reflex like crazy before I ran up against the not-the-worst ending a few times.

absolutely hilarious.

succeeds in winning (and pretty much breaking) the laughs to words ratio for any submission this jam

very unsettling and strange atmosphere which I think worked well for the intrigue.

Like the comments below, I hit unexpected ends, and I had trouble connecting that the sequences seemed to be related/chronoligically skipped; I thought at first I'd hit a bug or clicked on the wrong option, but then I got it on replays.

Replaying it to try over (and some different options), I was a little disoriented by the card game, and I wondered if it had any effect on the gameplay. (I wasn't sure?)

I found myself expecting some kind of grisly end to the paths! I think I was driven by hoping to see what might happen by the end.

PS. I myself had a bit of trouble reading as the game loaded text due to the scrolling/animating lines.

fun piece!

I appreciated the ink drawings and the whole style of the game, it went together very well and was delightful to interact with.

subject matter was pretty relatable :)

Gah!! It ended so quickly!

The atmosphere was absolutely top-notch, as was the prose. The book-like presentation along with minimal but evocative art was very effective, and I loved experiencing the world being fleshed out bit by bit. It looks from reading the description like an existing world I'm not familiar with (?) but I felt like I was being introduced at just right pace as a novice to it.

I was just left wanting more.

This was so well-crafted and engaging; I played through to the end but didn't manage to put my kids into a good school - daaaaarn!

Though I don't know much about post-opium war Shanghai beyond what's taught in schools, this felt very, very authentic - foreign money, western influence, the power dynamics of what happens when you speak English... and the haggling. Oh my, the haggling. You captured the dance just right.

The interface was also so intuitive and fresh, and I felt like I was playing a board game at the computer. I'd forgotten for a moment that I was playing a game jam game and rolled my sleeves up for the drama that would follow once we'd sailed in-land and just wanted more.

This has been my favorite entry thus far.

wow I loved this.

lovely art style, lovely music and mood, great characters.

The opening banter was super-entertaining, and the stakes/possibilities of the quasar were great.

I found it super-satisfying to turn my crewmates green and tell them nice things (who doesn't want to hear nice things) enough that I'd forgotten all about the quasar by the time it came back and was like "OH YEAH" in a good way.

then when it hit, the visuals, the music changing, ahh, it hit pretty good.

the ending sequence just felt so important and gave me all the feels.

(one thing I admit is I was using the down arrow to page through dialogue so I made a choice near the end I didn't intend on doing, but then I tried playing through a second time to try the other choice and... it felt like I got the same outcome? but maybe I'm missing more hidden stuff in the game...)

Very cool tech, and done apparently between work and emergency-parties (?!)

I got pulled in with the first few lines and little details, and got quite invested from the get-go!

Once I made it past the first options, I found myself often re-reading both choice text options over and over to try and figure out which one I'd liked more, but then I'd forgotten what had come before by then. (or sometimes, if a choice text I'd read had actually happened, or if it was choice text I was still reading)

But otherwise, I already feel very attached to a witch known for the volume of her voice, daughter of bookkeepers, who befriended a giant, and went on a journey...

Yes! I set the dialogue speed to 10.

Surreal and captivating. This was an experience.

The mystery hit me on first contact with the game, and it was paced wonderfully. Living through different dreams had just the right amount of detail and filling in the blanks, along with a nice peppering in of choices. While the game looked like it could have used a pass from a native speaker, the atmosphere came through very strongly all the same.

The sanity system was interesting and made me excited to play a mechanical game with the story, but I couldn't figure out what would increase or decrease my sanity. Perhaps it was remembering which passages were "good" and which were "bad" - but I didn't want to replay through "good" passages while avoiding "bad" ones to try and beat the game.

By the way, I noticed you guys ran into the cursed scroll bug when tall images are used - the fantastic @nicotupe fixed it on our game by replacing a line in main.js on export:

Replace this:

 var storyContainer = document.querySelector('#story');

With this:

    var storyContainer = document.querySelector('#story');

    // Extend height to fit

    setInterval(() => {

        var needToScroll = (storyContainer.style.height !== contentBottomEdgeY()+"px");

        storyContainer.style.height = contentBottomEdgeY()+"px";

        if (needToScroll){

            scrollDown(contentBottomEdgeY());

        }

    }, 500)

edit: nicotupe made a blogpost here  https://theworldasastage.com/dev/20220906-imagesonink/

Super-cool visualization of what happens along with the story. I felt like I knew what was coming, but it was fun to play through and experience it all the same. The interface along with the visuals felt very slick, and seeing the images spread out along the window felt uber-unique.

This one definitely struck me as sitting right in the feeling of "Incredible, yet..."!

I've never seen so much fiction written about this subject matter! I was overwhelmed by the huge amount of choices often all at once (and especially at the beginning) but I played through to the end. Fun bit at the ending too. :)

Lovely ambience and atmosphere, especially in the opening scene. The writing was succinct and punchy, and I was totally pulled into the conflict immediately.

I struggled a bit with delayed dialogue display since I read faster than the maximum dialogue speed, I found myself wanting to click through a lot faster, especially after reaching the first death point.

The expressions, character art and background really added a lot to the feel of this game.

Strange and interesting. I was intrigued, but then lost myself trying to figure out a goal.

The NSEW navigation was pretty fun though slightly disorienting. I felt myself pulled to try and constantly move to new unexplored areas. Asking for information about the further ones gave me trepidation, and I found myself wanting to encounter danger, or some kind of roll of the dice.

It felt meaningful to see recaps of visiting old cities, and I wanted to see more importance of the time passed/my relationship with them.

Very cool and unique sketch.

game plays and handles awesomely

Lovely music and easy attractive look. Vivid colors and world that felt pleasant to be in and look at. Appreciated being able to get into the game quickly. Simple concept made me excited for what to expect.

I used kb/m and found the reverse camera controls jarring.

I was disoriented for a while when I started the game, and the voice told me to go to the mountain. I felt like I needed more visual reinforcement to get a feel for where to go, especially with the open nature of the starting area. (...and no rewards for actually exploring the starting area - I felt frustration/exit reflex until I found the path to the mountain to "start" the game.)

I got caught on the collision a number of pieces of scenery, like the wide brown rock that needs to be jumped over.

I would have appreciated feedback in terms of VFX or an animation when sprinting; just the increased movespeed made me unsure if I was actually sprinting properly.

The jumping puzzles felt a little punitive to me, with failure ending in death with a small unskippable. I wanted to get back in faster, but also jumping felt slidey and I never quite felt like jumping was crunchy and predictable; often I was wrestling with the camera for the right angle and was unsure whether I'd jumped off at the right point or not.

I put the game down before I discovered the "gliding" - I felt like I would have loved to experience the "hook" of the game earlier.

game looks beautiful, and gravity-zipping through rings is an awesome core concept.

I tried playing the game with mouse and keyboard on multiple monitors, and my cursor wasn't locked to my screen.

The game also starts with mouse sensitivity cranked way up, and the camera slider options are over-sensitive where it's hard to get something that's playable with mouse. (there are maybe a few pixels between spinning like mad vs camera barely moves when mousing)

I felt like I wanted a way to skip the opening cutscenes.

edit: removed comment about conservation of momentum through the rings - it IS in there, though I still struggled with chaining it fluently

super-fun, and lovely tone. brings me back to zork and hitchhiker days.

now if only I could get past those darned squirrels - I don't suppose I'll have to eat an analgesic...?!