Tried to play this on my laptop in browser. It just didn’t work for me. Screen was empty and I could shoot bullets from the bottom right. That was it.
Maybe there’s a problem with the web version, then it’s best to not use that as a publishing option. Anyway, I was looking forward playing your game. I really enjoyed the zany pixelart style you had going on.
Thinking out loud: Build.zip and MyProject.exe. This doesn’t inspire much confidence
Oh we’re straight in the game! Let’s go.
Wow this guy must be spending even more on asset packs than I do. This looks AAA.
Oh straight into instruction. I can learn from this guy.
Hmm. Is it E? Is it space? Space bar, it’s space bar. Could’ve put that at the bottom of the dialog box as a hint.
And here we gooo! I’m not moving? Oh now I am. Slight delay.
Oh shit car, weave and clear. Guy comes to punch me and glitches… I guess I’ll restart the game.
And again the delay after the instruction. It wasn’t a fluke.
Now I’m dodging everyone… And no one starts a fight. I guess I just have to dodge those scanny droid things?
I know the EMP is to the right, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get past the fence. Maybe just continue onward?
Was the game this quiet the whole time? No footsteps, I see a drone fly by and I can just hear my imagination giving it a wub-wub-wub sound but it isn’t actually there.
I go round the corner dodge the last scanny boi and… into the void. I think I clipped through the map.
Well the EMP is that way though so let’s keep going. Nope no way to get back in there. Oh well, I guess that’s it for me.
Review: Looks amazing and the scope is very clear. Really well planned.
The visuals are amazing but I did expect more sound to match that. And no way to actually reach the ending made it a bit unsatisfying for me. But until it really felt like a game.
I really admire you setting a goal and really keeping it to a minimum, because you’re in a game jam. Kudos.
Thoughts out loud: It has a menu! This is a professional.
Love the trashrock. Oh, but it doesn’t loop to well.
Oooh even settings.
Start game. Gotta turn that mouse sensitivity up!
Love the apartment. Feels lived in, not to heavy handed design.
Every apartment needs a spinning baseball bat.
UI could use some love. Font is pretty basic and margins/paddings are very inconsistent.
Why is the interaction menu different for the bed than the other things?
Why more than one interaction button? Gotta remap these controls on my steam deck.
F, it, I’ll just use the virtual keyboard. That actually worked?
Let’s look at the dispenser… and I’m outside. Ok.
Where do I go from here? Ok I see I have a map. How do I open it?
Ok clicking it doesn’t seem to work. Well I have a touchscreen and this is third person, probably not the expected interaction. Maybe press M?
Ok that worked. And I still don’t know where to go.
But man this looks pretty (I just take some time to take in the skyline).
Let me just start walking. I hear a sound. My ui seems to react to it. Ok maybe I have to track a signal?
It’s getting stronger, my jammer is weaker.
I jump a bit, and startle my wife in bed, as somebody just yells AAaargh right into my earpod. I think I hear gunshots. Nothing else happens. I guess I’m good.
I walk out of the alleyway and I get hit. But apparently I can tank many shots. A guy runs up and starts throwing some pretty fancy punches. Doesn’t hurt me though. And he blocks the bullets that do, so that’s good.
I find out I can run! I weave through the bullets to the basketball court. I manage to have a chat with two NPC’s while dodging bullets. Gotta love open world games.
I run away from the shooters and AArgh guys. And another AAaargh guy shows up, and multiple shooters. They finally manage to kill me.
Review: The vibes are amazing. I also really appreciate the working menu, and it even works in game. Although you still control the game while the menu is active. It’s great.
I did miss instruction on what to do. I think the apartment could just have one thing in there, and that would be the mission. Or just have it on the map. I think it’s something to do with the jammer and signal things, but it is unclear to me.
But man, this is just cool. I would actually appreciate it if it was just the city and you got a car to drive around in. No AAaargh dudes or shooties.
boiler inn
Thoughts: Mouse doesn’t work on my SteamDeck. Ooh I can use this as a touchscreen instead. That should work well with a visual novel game.
I have 9 weird eyeball, 9 rotating thingies, and 9 cyber orbs. The icons are not made with the same margin and don’t align. This physically hurts me.
Font choice could really elevate this game. Now this reads as a standard font.
The dialog box has a stretched out version of the same panel as the inventory it seems. Wait it isn’t. But that bigger corner cutout and the bigger borders really make it look stretched. I would choose one panel and just 9patch it.
The ??? has some little lines under it. I think it may be UI to show that this is the character name, but it really looks to me like part of the dialog box is transparent and it is noisy/messy. I would’ve preferred it not being there at all.
Ok done with the UI.
Really cool depth sensation of the background while it is still hand drawn. Cool.
When the Player title comes, the little blue artifacts annoy me even more. It makes it harder to read. It’s noise to me.
Cool landlady art.
Interesting use of English.
I can ask about the job and comfy prison. Did I miss some intro? But really good UX here. Players probably won’t read all your text, but they WILL read what’s on a button before they click it. Nicely done.
There’s a whole log of dialog box, for a whole little of dialog. Why not make the dialogs text bigger?
Ok definenitly not native English speakers (writers?)
Oh shit! Minigame! Scamble! Shit, what do I do! Oh arrow keys! It must be some kind of paddle I move to catch! No, that’s not working, maybe because I use a steamdeck? No those are not the arrow keys either… Failed. Oh there are icons next to the arrow keys. Was this a rhythm game?
They’re still happy with my work though. Self high-five!
More people! Who is this immigrant? I can collect tribute? Feels a bit opressive. Nope, he just gives me money. Not feeling to great about that one.
Next… the cyber pimp. Oh he’s a cop. I can collect tribute from a cop? Oh heck yes. Power to the cyberpeople. People immediately disappear after I collect tribute… makes sense I guess.
Click around on the other people. Not sure what this is for. It seems it is the gameplay addition to the visual novel, but not sure what I’m doing here. More tribute!
I am used to the text filling up the dialog to instantly complete when I click and THEN it would continue to the next dialogue. Now it’s an instant skip. This really breaks the UI convention of visual novels.
Ok I am finally getting this is some sort of shop style game, where patrions stop by and you get to know them over time. Right over my head.
Emergency! Ah it’s a spot the infiltrator game. Ok, I’ve paid way too little attention for this. I guess it can be deferred from doing all the interviews but this game is becoming a bit too grindy. That’s it for me.
Review I like the mood of the game. The music does a lot of the heavy lifting there (although it does get repetitive).
I think the strongest part of the game was the visual novel part, and the other more sandboxy part was more conceptual. It was hard to grasp.
The minigame I really just didn’t get. I think it was there because you needed some kind of “I’m doing the operation” to the game. A more reaction based minigame doesn’t really work in a visual novel for me. I wouldn’t mind a dice roll here instead. Perhaps the player can have a progression in stats.
I tried to follow the story, but I just didn’t get it. It felt like the stories were their own thing. Maybe there was something overarching but I didn’t see it.
So mainly for me this was the mood. It was pretty cool, but I do feel some elements were quite mismatched (both in artwork, as in writing). Maybe this was a problem of many different contributors?
sur-ve1-lanc3
Realtime thoughts
I feel very tall. Oh And I can’t walk. Then I would expect more agressive mouse look, and some ui to show me that this is like an old school adventure game.
Love the subtle hum of equipment. Instantly got annoyed that some of my gear was humming. Turns out it was the game 10/10 for immersion there.
That is some aggressive monitor backlight.
That chair is disproportionate to the desk.
It’s very hard to read the in world text. Text in world will always suffer from it being hard to read. Text are small symbols, a chunky chair is not. Pixels matter with text. Perhaps billboarding may help with this? It’s one of the flags for Godot’s text. If not maybe use an empty Node3D as a positional marker and then use that with the camera rotation to control a UI overlay for it.
A virtual desktop? Brave man. Just implementing windows and sandboxed little programs within your own is a daunting task. I guess we all have to learn once.
Review
I really like the no nonsense style, and how a lot of intent is conveyed with so little. Really making use of the little things they got here. I assume it is to work around some skill constraints, but those are excellently mitigated by a creative vision.
Looking forward to you gaining execution skills. Hit me up if you want to have a chat about tech stuff.
