itch.io

I played through and have some feedback as a fellow developer.  But first I must say I really like the art style and atmosphere!  Good job of capturing that N64/PS1 aesthetic and keeping it consistent throughout.

Now onto the things I noticed:

- things light up before I can actually click them, and often even when they are very far away

- in the basement I crouched under a shelf to find a desk with something in the drawer but I cannot grab it as it only closes the drawer

- the footsteps get annoying pretty fast.  I think the tempo is off (feels too fast) and there isn't enough variety, and they in a weird place between too good and too bad quality

- when the text "types", it continually widens so it's impossible to read until the entire line is written.  A LOT of games do this and it's annoying.  The solution is to show the whole text at once but make every letter transaparent and then just change the transparency of each letter one at a time.

- I was able to click on the bible even though the drawer wasn't yet opened

- walking around feels either like the player is slightly drunk or I'm flying an airplane a bit.  Might just be a style thing, but the delayed movement and swaying is not for me.

- I wish I could use SHIFT to run

- outside the kitchen there is some geometry that bleeds through the wall

- the playstation controllers are SNES controllers

- the doors don't make a sound when they close

- when I get too close to a wall the flashlight goes into the wall when I think it probably should stay just a little bit in front of it

- ok, I could get the fuse in the basement after first checking the panel.  Maybe let the player click on it before but just say "it's a fuse.  I don't really need it" or maybe they should be able to pick it up saying "this could come in handy" or something

- some things light up but I can't frob them (like the passenger-side door of the truck)

- there are gaps between some objects and I can see through them

- I looked everywhere for the sandpaper but couldn't find any so gave up in chapter 2

the windows version KINDA worked, but not really (once I got to the gameplay there was no video).  I'd have to tinker a bit, but already I can tell you the unskippable text is real annoying.  And how it jumps to the next line when the word gets too long and the beeping noise.  Makes it sound like an old computer, and that seems to have nothing to do with the game.  Maybe just make it static text instead of the typing effect?

I just tried running on Arch linux and was greeted by this error:

"vulkan device could not be created at the project's supported feature level"

There are some console warnings but I don't think they're relevant:

(zenity:113424): Gtk-WARNING **: 11:26:22.021: Locale not supported by C library.
Using the fallback 'C' locale.
(zenity:113427): Gtk-WARNING **: 11:26:22.081: Locale not supported by C library.
Using the fallback 'C' locale.
(zenity:113427): Adwaita-WARNING **: 11:26:22.169: Using GtkSettings:gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme with libadwaita is unsupported. Please use AdwStyleManager:color-scheme instead.

I can't seem to find any error logs.  I tried both using my in-built Intel GPU and my nVidia GPU.  Maybe you need to lower the feature levels (whatever those are) in Unreal?

Also when I unzipped it unzipped to a folder "Linux".  Better would be if it was called "CrabLegs" or "CrabLegs-Linux" or something.

yeah, I was deep into the menus twiddling with settings and kept hitting "back" but accidentally took me all the way back to the main menu (well, first it asked me for language and darkness settings, which it probably shouldn't do again since I already did that), and then I hit "start" since I wanted to restart the level.  I guess I should have hit "chapter select".  But there should be a "are you sure?  this will delete all your progress" notification, or simply just go to chapter 1 and don't delete the progress, so that people can play again without losing all their progress.

- some of the dark figures don't explode into dust despite making the sound (about half of them don't)

- some objects I know I should be able to inspect but have to find odd angles to finally inspect them

- some objects I inspect (like the water-logged book in level 3) don't have the correct 3D origin, so they rotate oddly

- I'm not actually sure what replacing the lantern does.  Is that like a last-resort once my oil is used up?

- the dark figures are scary as hell, but it looks like they just float in random directions.  might be better if they just stand still with a creepy idle animation (rocking back and forth?) or float gently up/down

- couldn't find the nails in the third level.  Again looked all over hugging both walls looking up and down (a common tactic I use for "key-hunting" levels/games).  Eventually all my oil ran out so I wanted to restart the level and...

- I accidentally restarted the game.  That should be made clearer.  And now all my progress is lost.  I would expect to have the levels unlocked that I beat, so even if I re-play, I can always go to whichever chapter I want to

- when text is writing on the screen, it all of a sudden flips the word to the next row.  Instead it should pre-calcuate which row it will be on OR hyphenate the word

- the handwritten notes cursive font is hard to read.  Maybe choose a different one and/or add the option to use very legible fonts instead.  Oops, nevermind: the "read" button makes it very legible.  I expected that to read it audibly.

- I would choose a more artistic way to make the buttons.  It just looks like Arial font with pipes between them (Zoom | Read | Back) and the hover effect is not centered and the whole thing is very jarring when compared to the rest of the game.  Maybe do something like the VHS timestamp lettering and a box that goes around it when hovering

- I accidentally used the oil for my lamp because i'm so used to hitting F for crouching in other games.  Since oil is so essential, perhaps it should be something you do in inventory so you don't use up the oil by mistake like I did

- I couldn't find the key in the second level despite going over the whole thing 4 times (hugging left wall, hugging right wall, looking up the whole time, looking down the whole time).  I like the atmosphere, and I am a big Thief fan (include the fan-made missions), so I rather like reading bits of paper to slowly unravel the story.  But so far (just 2 levels), it's a bit "samey" visually, which is OK as it's slowly ramping up, but I kinda felt like the intro text already rushed us into the story.  So maybe the intro text could be more cryptic, just saying you are sent to find out what happened to the miners and if maybe they are still there, and don't give the character's suspicious away and rather let the player make their suspicions build throughout the game.

I also got stuck once behind some rocks where I probably shouldn't have been and since there is no jumping/climbing I couldn't get out and had to restart the level :(

But all in all it's my kind of game and I will have to go about finding that key to see how the story progresses...

I did put the tag "mature" on the game, but yeah - an in-game warning would have been good.  I ran out of time.  After the rating is over I'll clean up a few things including that.  Good to know the humor came through!  I think with such dark themes the humor is important.

OK I had so much fun just running around and knocking shit over, but I couldn't get the pick up/release object to work for some reason.  OK, I just tried again and it worked.  I had to hold the left mouse button BEFORE running into the balls.  I also went outside before reading the warning and was in for a shock, but it was really interesting out there!  I could imagine with a lot more stuff to interact with and more portals to other dimensions coud make it really fun.

I was using keyboard and even with the sensitivity all the way down, it seemed way too responsive for my taste.  Also, I really expected up/down to be switched, as is standard in flying games, so my brain kept telling me to hit the wrong buttons.  But a very pleasant experience overall.

I actually think this could work better as a mobile game where you move around with your finger.  Or if on PC, then with your mouse.  Or at least have that option.

great atmosphere, interesting idea, and while I did have fun playing it (got to 1000 points!) I feel like it could use a few more "gimmicks", like maybe some things that make you run faster/slower/bigger/smaller, and of course more levels (which I didn't expect for a game jam game).

Did you make the falling down and getting back up animation yourself?  I really liked it!  Also: good job on being "invisible" for a bit after being hit.  Once when I was getting up something else hit me but thankfully it didn't count.

the game required internet access to play, which I don't feel comfortable doing.  Do you know why this is?

was actually really fun to play, even though I'm not really into these kinds of games.  The music is really good for this kind of game.  I love how you dampened the highs for when the player is outside the bowling alley.  A small touch, but a nice one.

I wish the music would come in at the beginning (it only seemed to start after I slept the first time)

I like the old school Game Boy graphical style

was unsure at what to do at first, but it became very clear right away, and is a very interesting game idea.  I found myself instantly wanting to protect my memory and already devising new strategies to do so.  I really liked the aesthetic as well (CRT-like screen overlay.  Simple, yet effective!)

was a lot of fun to play (I like beat-em-ups)

controller support would have been awesome, but worked absolutely fine on keyboard

I had a hard time seeing my character when the screen got busy, so maybe keeping her in the foreground or maybe adding some color or some glow or something

I know the genre generally does only facing left or right, but I really would have loved to strike up and down

also I loved that I could smash non-enemies.  Was really fun!

would have liked a bit more story, though (and the anime cover art is kinda misleading to what the game is)

yeah, the song definitely needed a horror-themed game attached to it.  Funny how close our ideas were, though!

tongue-in-cheek humor is key in a lot of point-and-click games I've played, so I knew it needed to make an appearance in this one.  And it was my intention for them to be hints at how to progress.

thanks for the kind words!

spoon was in the drawer

the "flying face" is technically the end.  I think the text then reads "and now I am god" or something.  I forgot to put "hit ESC to quit", but that is the end of the game.  Was working on it til the last minute so definitely missed a few things.  But yes - horro was the intent, so I'm glad to hear it worked on you!