itch.io

Glad to hear! Thanks very much for your feedback!

Great fun! Well done! 

I really enjoyed the Archives of Trevosa. The game kept me interested throughout as I tried to piece the whole story together. I would make some suggestions regarding the UI, but these have already been made by others, so all there is left for me to do is congratulate the developers. Two thumbs up! 

Yeah, pretty much. Not sure it helped, but I also posted it on itch.io's discord. 

Good luck!

Yeah, somehow most of them came back to life in recent days. I got no word from support, though, I guess they're too busy handling this kind of requirements.

Thank you so much!!!! Your video is such unexpected good news!!!

A lot of effort went into making this game, but itch.io's algorithm buried it so brutally quickly that it passed unnoticed. It was even de-indexed for many weeks!

I had plenty ideas to improve the gameplay but, after all that, it felt like a waste of time. Maybe if your video contributes to raise more interest I will! :) :) :)

Also, your critique gave me a few things to think about, so it's all welcome feedback. In particular, some hand-holding is probably needed. That's why I wrote the guides, but it's true I cannot expect a casual player to read through that material from the outset.  

Anyway, thanks very much again. You have a new follower from today!

Wow! This is really useful feedback!!! 

Because we already know all the answers, the hardest thing for us is to understand how a player would actually solve the mystery. 

Thanks very much for taking the time to write this down!

Itch.io features literally more than one million games. There are some professional quality ones alongside thousands of unfinished demos and basic school projects, and the feature page can only host so many titles. So it's really easy to miss out on some of the gems out there. Indeed, there are many very good games that very few people play because they get buried extremely quickly in the browser.

Besides, there are many one-off developers alongside others who release good-quality games on a consistent basis.  Of course, you can "follow" the latter, but it seems to me that followership is currently underdeveloped. In fact, very few people notice the "view more games by X" button. 

I know each developer gets a landing page, and I know there are developer logs, but the former are not so easy to find and the latter have the same problem as the game browser. 

I personally would love to have a new section within the browser that allows searches by developers (popular, new & popular, games released, number of ratings/comments, etc), as opposed to just being able to browse games. I think this would allow the people who contribute regularly to make their work more visible and to build actual communities around it.

Noted. Thanks very much! :) :) :)

Thanks very much for your feedback. We basically agree with everything!

- Behaviors/locations: The clues might be a little faint, but we did try to implement this. If you look closely you will realize that, for instance, the "most likely to date a supermodel" person is unsurprisingly lying next to the good-looking girl. There are a couple of other examples, but maybe we need to make things more explicit. Thanks for pointing it out.

- Conscious for longer, etc: Yes, definitely. This would not be easy to implement within the current framework, but it's something for us to think about.

- Accelerant: Again, yes. The game was supposed to have an additional gameplay layer dealing with fire dynamics (working out where the fire started, how it spread, and so on). We just didn't have the time to implement it before the deadline. :)

Anyway, we look forward to further develop the game in the future. And your comments will certainly come in handy!

Thanks very much for your kind comments. You are more than welcome to chip in with new ideas. :) 

It's great to know how long it took you to complete the game---we couldn't estimate it reliably because we knew all the answers, but now we have an actual idea :). 

Also, it's interesting to know that body #17 was difficult. We thought the most difficult ones would be  the ones around the dance floor! 

We agree about the report. We had a deadline to meet for the jam and couldn't put as much work on the report part as we would have liked to. Our executive decision under pressure was to make it functional enough for the game to be "finishable". But we know it doesn't look awesome, and also that some of the answers are a little ambiguous. So let's just say it still needs a bit of work. :)

Our idea is to keep improving the game. Who knows, maybe we'll launch it on steam at some point. This jam is being a great opportunity to collect feedback, so thanks very much again for taking the time to comment.

Thanks very much for your kind comments.  You've given us plenty of useful feedback, so it's all welcome. :)

You're right to point out that the report is not as polished as the part where you identify the bodies.  We struggled a bit to meet the jam deadline, so we couldn't put as much work on it as we would have liked to. Regarding your questions, please find some tips below:

fvzcyl pbyyncfrq -- . Technically, your answer could be good (so we'll need to remove it from the choices), but the answer that probably makes the most sense in the context of the report is raqrq hc genccrq

cerffhevmrq tnf --. The crucial bit here is "entered through". This gap is associated with opening the fire door, in a context in which  someone was already trying to open the carpark door (which was partially blocked). So what "entered" did so from the outside. This means it couldn't be cerffhevmrq tnf. The correct answer is pyrna nve. Our reasoning/wording could be clearer, though. Thanks for pointing it out. [Incidentally, we planned to include an additional gameplay layer for fire dynamics that would have made this self explanatory, we just didn't get around to it.]

rkcybfvba --. You can check the PD reference manual for arson to get an additional clue here (it's towards the end, I believe). The correct answer is sveronyy

urael --. I guess urael got killed too, so you're not wrong, but the report mostly refers to cnhy, that was our logic. Still, your point is valid, we need to improve the wording of the last sentence or simply add an option that reads ("them both"). 

I am still playing through Verse and Venom and I have to say it's quite an intriguing experience. At first I thought it was a one-room VN, but I was pleasantly surprised to see there is a lot more to explore and plenty of things to interact with. The characters are varied and mysterious enough to keep me interested. I am really enjoying my playthrough so far. Thanks for a fun game! 

EDIT: I have found a few dialogue-related bugs. For some reason, some dialogues are repeated over and over. For instance, the Belle Dame dialogue shows up when talking to other people. Maybe this is a known issue, but I thought I would let you know.

Honestly, there are so many things to like about this game!!! The possibility to prosecute/defend, the moody music, the minimalist (yet interesting) mystery... I have enjoyed my 3-4 playthroughs so far, but I haven't managed to sway the jury yet. I always end up running out of time, so I guess the jam topic is well implemented. :D 

Anyway, I think your game is really fun. Thanks very much for making it!

EDIT: I found a small bug. Apparently, the speech text is not always cleared when you go from the mind map to the main screen, so sometimes you get dialogue written over dialogue. It's still readable, but I thought you might want to know.

This is truly impressive for a month's worth of work! Such nice art, great writing, and compelling story!! Your game is absolutely amazing!

I am not into VNs, but yours was of great quality and there were a lot of choices to make, which kept me interested. Not sure if the choices I made had an effect on the (terrible) ending I got, but you definitely have all the groundwork laid out for a branching story with lots of different routes. I must say I look forward to the finished product!

I don't have much feedback for future development. It's all nitpicking anyway and it's probably known issues for you, but here it goes:

•  Maybe a save/load function would help? (if there is one, I couldn't find it). Even though it's a demo, the game is relatively long. Players may want to save progress in case they need to interrupt their playthrough.
• Some of the buttons feel a little clunky, as if you had to click near the very center of the button for it to work. 
• Combining the idea of a mystery game with a management side sounds like a winner! Right now, the management part feels a little undercooked, but I understand you will further flesh it out in the future, so I was fine with it. 

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your game. Thanks very much for a fun experience! 

Nice effort! I usually find VNs boring, but I gave yours a go today because your game had high karma. 

While it feels unfinished (missing sprites and so on), there are a lot of things to like about it. For one, I felt I had meaningful choices to make. I also liked the backgrounds, I think they suited your world nicely. And having different routes/endings is really cool for a mystery game, because, by definition, mystery games do not have much replayability. 

All in all I enjoyed it. I look forward to the finished product!   :)

Thanks very much for your comments. Your feedback is really valuable and welcome, I think we should polish certain things a bit more. Crossing out characters is definitely on the list, we just didn't have enough time to implement everything we wanted.

I am still playing through your game, expect some comments soon! :)

Thanks very much for playing! Your feedback is definitely welcome. We'll give it some thought when making the final version of the game. 

The Yearbook was developed in a relatively short time for a jam, and currently has that level of polish, but we plan to include an additional layer of gameplay between the identification of the bodies and the report that should flatten the curve a little bit.  

Thanks very much for your comment. We did put a lot of effort into it, so it means a lot that people are actually having fun with our game.

I enjoyed yours too!

Got it. Thanks!

Thanks very much for the feedback. You're right that the focus on identifying bodies can get old quickly. The original idea was to add to more layers of gameplay, one to do with fire dynamics and another one to further fleshen out the events of 2011. But we run out of time. :P :D

Sure, no problem. :)

• There was nothing frustrating about the timeline app. It's a clever idea and it's useful. However, because you had to fill in different gaps in different apps (time, phone, ID, date, etc), and because time is so critical in your mystery, I found myself continuously going back a couple of screens to the source to verify everything was correct. That was the cumbersome bit. I think a cut & paste function would fix this to a large extent.
• On a completely different note, last year I took part in this jam with a game named Dead Girl Trending (https://thistlestudios.itch.io/dead-girl-trending) where I also implemented a timeline with draggable handles. Not sure this would be useful in your case, but it might give you another perspective.
• Four hours was on point for me. I prefer a mystery you can get into. :)

Anyway, as I said, I loved your game. It's really great work. We are probably discussing professional level of polish here.  

I quite enjoyed your game. It's short and sweet. It's amazing how you built a compelling mystery with just a few bits of well-picked information and a single scene.  Congratulations!

Finding the last hint was kind of difficult, but that made it all the more rewarding. Thanks very much for making it!

Pretty cool game. I enjoyed reading through the clues and uncovering a very atmospheric mystery. I liked the fact that the game was forgiving in instances where the player could get the answer wrong. 

Thanks very much for a fun experience!

Your game looks great, really atmospheric. Even though I do not like VNs, I was interested in the plot. 

I am not sure I did something wrong, but the game ended as soon as the clock hit 10 o'clock. Is this intended or did I somehow come across a bug?

I'm still playing through your game and enjoying it.  So far I really like the mix between point and click adventure and mystery game and the "contained" environment. The idea of a narcisist assassin who lets you know exactly when and where he is going to hit adds to the sense of challenge. The jam topic is well integrated IMHO, so kudos to you for a great entry!

I think I found a couple of bugs, one of them potentially gamebreaking: 

• At one stage, I talked to the star, who was walking out of the toilet. She pushed me onto the stage and I ended up locked in a position from which I could not get out. This effectively ended my first run.
• Some people appear and disappear, seemingly at random.
• People say they're busy after three or four questions, but you can pick "leave" and return immediately and they will talk to you again. Not sure this is intended. If it is, maybe it would be better to just let the player talk to the other characters freely?

I am not at all into the VN genre, but your game managed to keep me interested. I liked the implementation of the 'Groundhog Day' concept and how you integrated it with the jam topic. What you achieved as a solo developer in such a short time frame is great. Congratulations!

I think I found a couple of small bugs (people disappearing but talking, the name of the speaker not showing properly above the text), but nothing gamebreaking. 

Thanks very much!

I had never seen a point and click adventure with the roguelike twist. Very original. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. The topic and the setting are also quite unique, which adds to the sense of novelty. 

Maybe I felt the 24 actions were a bit limiting. Sometimes I found myself dead (again) almost before I could try anything new (the cross puzzle), but I think you did a great job overall. Thanks very much for a fun experience!

If the game let you proceed to the ending screen, then you nailed it. :)

If you remember, any feedback as to where the report feel vague would help us improve. 

Thanks again!

Thanks very much for the tip. I managed to complete the game with it. I liked it overall. It's short and sweet and the puzzles make sense. I found a weird bug where the main character just wanted to walk right all the time, but it somehow went away. Great work! :)

Enjoying it so far, it's really cool. 

Once you've been through the whole house (wearing hat), how do you actually proceed to solve the mystery?

Thanks very much. Being compared with Obra Dinn, even remotely, is a true honor. We are really glad you enjoyed it!!!

Your game was really fun to play. I felt some LucasArts vibes here and there. In particular, I loved the dark humor (the "oooh" bits at the beginning really cracked me up, so did the guy that hit his head against the altar).

I made it to the end and picked one culprit, but I got a "that guy so wanted to get sacrificed" message and a "Game end" screen, so I am not too sure whether I actually completed the game or found an end game bug.

All it all I enjoyed it, though. Thanks for a fun experience. 

Thanks very much for trying! And please, feel free to ask for hints. :)

You have quite an immersive game! I really liked how much effort you put into crafting the 3D world and into building the characters. I have also experienced some control issues, such as the speaking interactions not firing reliably, but I am definitely enjoying it. Good work!

I have been playing this game for a little while now and all I can say is I love everything about it. The 90s vibe, the UI, the music, and the way you're expected to decode the mystery.  I'll come back to edit this comment and rate once I've finished, but I just wanted to let you guys know I am thoroughly enjoying your entry.

EDIT

I just completed the game. Got almost perfect solution and I loved it. I must say The Rivergrove Files is one of the best indie games I have ever played. It feels like a professional title, from the UI to the radio station and the music. The mystery is interesting and well integrated with the theme of the jam. The game is really polished, I found no bugs. Deep down it's all about reading text, but it doesn't feel like that in any way. Hats off to you for achieving all this in such a short time frame!!!

Some minor points in case you want to go commercial (I gather you do from the Wishlist on Steam icon on the desktop) :

• I ended up compiling my own timeline on a Word file, as I felt the in-built timeline was kind of cumbersome to fill out (although absolutely necessary and useful for gameplay). Maybe it would be worthwhile re-thinking this part of the game.
• It took me about four hours to beat the game. Not sure there is a save-load function. If there is one, I couldn't find it; if there isn't, I think this game would definitely need one to avoid losing your timeline every time you have to stop playing (my own entry to this game does not have one, but I think it's much shorter than yours).
• I think the use of hyphens in phone IDs was inconsistent a couple of times. I know because I had to note down the numbers exactly as they were on a piece of paper before transferring them to the automatic matching system, which wouldn't work for this reason. This set me back a little. It was nothing major, but I just thought I'd let you know. I think this happens at least with the phone found by the river.
• Implementing cut & paste would contribute to streamline the bits where you need to transfer info from the files to the interactive parts of the UI.
• The 98-99 feels almost unfair. I only realized by chance that this was "a thing". So you really need to pay attention for the events to make sense. One mistake with this is what ultimately led me to miss out on a perfect score.

As I said, though, this game reminded me of why I love playing indie games. Thanks very much for making it, and please, keep up the good work!!! :D :D :D

Thanks very much for your kind comment. We are really happy you enjoyed it! 

I just managed to complete it from scratch. 13:39 minutes! :)

The wording of one of the clues in the mag threw me off-track, but overall the puzzle was really well constructed. Congratulations!

I think it had something to do with my cache not cleaning up properly, but I am not sure. All I know is I was able to try again after resetting the computer. 

Anyway, I think the mystery is nicely built and I enjoyed the gameplay. The game looks relatively simple but there is more to it than meets the eye. I think you really managed to develop a mystery atmosphere that suits the topic of the jam well. This is a game you play wanting to get to the ending---and that's a good thing! 

I felt that perhaps the 20-question limit is a bit too tight. I have the impression that you need to play the game several times until you work out the right combination of questions.  Maybe I missed something crucial, though.

Thanks very much for your comment. A lot of effort went into this game, so it's great to know people enjoyed it. 

I was able to play through it once and I enjoyed it. The way new questions open up as you go is cool. 

I didn't get to pick the culprit because I ran out of time (so the jam topic is perfectly implemented! :) ). Now I'm trying to play again because I want to find out but, for some reason, the game seems stuck in the opening screen. I'll give it another try later.