itch.io

wow.  i love the look of this game!  you've captured the vibe of playing in the snow so perfectly.  i had a little trouble with the controls - i had no problem moving around, but the E button didn't always seem to work with Poodle.  the controls for Omelette were fine, but sometimes it was hard to read the light-coloured text against the snow.  the game is a bit buggy at times; i was able to leave the play area at one point, and i got stuck in limbo with the camera really high above the character!

but mainly i just had fun walking around, throwing snowballs and enjoying the visuals and the cinematic camera angles.  i'm going to keep playing and see what else i can discover.  very well done!  (especially for a solo project with time constraints.)

i've played a few games in the visual novel category, but i think this one is the best i've seen.  it's the very definition of a visual novel - it's visually stunning and the writing is as strong as any novel.  some of the images will stay with me for a long time.  very well done!

this is a super cool idea for a game; i really like the colour-changing mechanic.  unfortunately, i must be missing something because i'm not able to complete the second stage.  is it possible to switch colours while jumping?  that seems to be the solution, but clicking the mouse button while jumping doesn't seem to work for me.  i'll try again...

UPDATE:  i played the game a second time, and the flashing box didn't appear, so it might just be something to do with me refreshing the browser; i'm not sure. one other note, while i think of it: the sound effect that plays when text is being displayed is a bit loud compared to the rest of the audio.  you might want to adjust that because those sounds can be distracting.

i forgot to mention this before:  i really liked the colour palette you used in the game.  it completely enhances the mood and suits the setting (time period) very well

this is a beautiful looking game, and the story is very sweet - i wanted to see more, but maybe you can continue the story in a future version.  keep up the great work!  (and i'm very impressed that you created the engine.  the only minor bug i encountered was a flashing box in the top left corner whenever the scene changed.  it probably has something to do with the screen size/resolution).  A+

the idea is very simple, but it's executed very well, and i found it addictive.  (i think 90% was my best score)

i keep thinking how cool it would be to expand the game to include other visual attributes, like contrast, brightness, shape, scale, rotation, etc.  nice work!

cool game!  it's a very original idea, and the execution of the idea is excellent.  i liked the pixel art a lot, and the atmosphere of the game is perfect - even the humorous details (e.g., posters that say 'poster', pizza progress bar) make the game even creepier when the disturbing stuff starts happening.  and the writing is excellent - the dialog feels very real.  i'm super impressed, and i hope you keep working on it.  i'd love to see what happens next!

one other thought:  the current title of the game doesn't do the game justice.  it deserves a title that conveys the magnitude and 'twisted' logic (pun intended) of the task ahead.  i'll see if i can come up with an example of what i mean....

EDIT:  for some reason, I just thought of 'Plug and Pray', but that might be a little too much.  :-)

this is a super clever concept for a puzzle game.  i absolutely love the strategy involved in planning all the cable routes based on length of the cable and the proximity of other cables.  a simple idea with increasingly complex solutions.  the physics work really well, especially the way the cables hang and wrap around obstacles (not to mention each other!) so realistically.  the level design is very impressive and clearly very well thought out.

with some aesthetically appealing environmental details and maybe a very simple plotline (offering an explanation for why you need to plug in all these cables - other than opening doors), this could easily be a steam game that I would consider purchasing.  very, very impressive for a solo project done in a limited time.

i didn't encounter any bugs (unless you include the enemy bugs!), but I only played for a short time before i died.  i love the old arcade look and feel of the game.  and the 'vibe' system is so much cooler than the usual health meter.  :-)

very inventive little game!  i wish i could see more levels, but like many of the commenters here, I found it difficult to get particularly far.  jumping on bubbles is a very cool mechanic - i just wish the bubbles lasted longer!  but i know it's meant to be a really hard platformer, like Celeste, and i appreciate that you haven't oversimplified it.  (maybe an Easy Mode with longer-lastings bubbles would encourage the less skilful of us to go further...)

the graphics look great and the levels that i saw were very well designed.  well done!

i like how serene this game is.  and the way it encourages players to remember their own childhood and to bring a little bit of that childhood playfulness into their adult lives.  also, it's a perfect example of 'stopping to smell the roses'.  nicely done!

wow, this is a unique gaming experience!  it took a little while to get used to the interface; I had to repeat a tutorial to understand the clicking order but I didn't mind that.  my eyes were completely overwhelmed at first but it was interesting how i was able to gradually distinguish the overlapping patterns.  only one suggestion:  this might be hard to accomplish, but it would be great if the two pieces in the shift puzzles lined up a little more cleanly.  the funny thing is, there's a puzzle in MY game where tetris-like pieces have to be rotated in order to fit together, but it was easier for me because the pieces were solid colours, not patterned.  and i avoided the issue of moving pieces altogether by having the player 'paint' each piece onto a blank grid, according to its shape and rotation.

all in all, i really enjoyed your game!  my favourite puzzles were the scrolling ones - they were easier on the eyes than the Shift puzzles and, for me, a more satisfying challenge than the Kaleidoscopes, which were aesthetically pleasing but fairly easy to solve (which is not a bad thing at all - i'm just a fan difficult puzzles).  :-)

This is super appealing concept for a game, and the execution is impressive!  I like the stem mechanic; it feels very natural and smooth.  (I kept getting too close to the top of the screen, and then I realized that I had to slow down the growth by moving sideways!)  I wasn't sure what all the icons represented, so it required some trial-and-error to figure out what was harmful and what wasn't.  Also the icons on the Garden screen were somewhat unclear to me; I didn't understand the benefit of clicking the hand and the bag of money.  

I had never played an incremental game before, so I was a little confused about how to 'beat' the level, but after I tried a couple of times, I figured out that it's a gradual process and realized the importance of the upgrade tree.  I agree with the comment below; the Return button could be renamed Upgrade (or something along those lines) to make it more clear to the player that they need to upgrade in order to progress.  The message "don't worry, hero, try again" led me to click 'play again' instead of clicking 'return' and spending my meteorites on upgrades.  

Aside from being a bit confused, I was very impressed.  It's a really interesting and different kind of game, the look is fantastic and the depth of the upgrade mechanic inspires me to keep playing.  Well done!

thank you - that's so nice to hear!  it's interesting that we both used techniques that created a retro look (my 'dithered' images and your amazing replication of the VHS look), and some of our story elements are similar.  (I'm being nonspecific to avoid spoilers.  :-)   I admired your game for treating its subject matter with so much thoughtfulness.  Mine only uses it as a plot device, but yours is actually very insightful.)

the retro look was partly achieved out of necessity - i was trying out some software with a very limited colour palette and my graphics, when imported directly, looked pretty rough.  it was suggested that i could dither the images before importing them, so i used a website called Dither It which allowed me to specify which colours I needed.  I still don't fully understand how dithering works, but i love the look!

cool!  i was a bit shocked myself when i scored 35 (my prior best was 22).  

by the way, I think Sukima would do really well on Steam, if you're thinking of doing that.  it's the kind of game i would definitely purchase, and I'm sure others would too.

this is one of the most original games I've seen.  i love the concept of drawing your own pathway.  i found the game very challenging because of the time limit and the darkness.  i'm wondering if the first level could either be fully lit or un-timed to give the player an easier introduction to the game.  the game could gradually increase in difficulty that way.  overall, it's very impressive for a solo effort and i think it has great potential!

thanks!  i'll check out Fabled Footy right now - it looks impressive!

What a lovely game!  It's beautifully written and genuinely moving. The mechanics are very original, especially the aspect of choosing whether or not to edit the letters before sending.  And I really like the way the game deals with meaningful subject matter such as gender identity and complicated relationships.  You've created something with the potential to get people talking, thinking and feeling, which is a special achievement in the gaming world.

I had a lot of fun playing this game!  The controls worked well for me, and there was enough variety, in terms of power-ups, to keep me interested right until the end.  (Somehow, I was able to beat the ghost lord even after I died.  I'm not sure if this is a bug, but I was glad I got to see the final animation - it was hilarious!)  Well done.

Wow. I absolutely love this game.  I just played it for over an hour trying to get to the top of the leaderboard, and I finally did.  (35!)  It meets all the requirements of a good game:  simple idea, beautiful visuals and sound, superbly crafted mechanics and completely addictive.  5 stars across the board!

it definitely has potential!  i've only been able to see three levels (I'm not very good at platformers), but the level design is interesting and the mechanics feel satisfying.  i'm not sure if you've included ways to gain new powers, but that would be a great way of giving the player a sense of progress and variety.  my other suggestion would be checkpoints, so you don't have to restart every time you die.  it's easy for lousy players like me to get discouraged when they have to keep doing levels over again.  graphically, it's sparse, but personally, I like that aesthetic. :-)

On my second try, I got the game running.  It's such a unique idea for a game; I hope you continue to work on it.  I'm wondering if you could create a simple story to go along with it, or another way to give the player a sense of progression.  The idea of earning books is interesting, but I'm not sure if it's enough to make the player feel as if they've achieved something.  A+ for originality!

This game looks really interesting, but unfortunately I wasn't able to play because the game crashed while loading.  Hopefully, others will be able to play because it's a very appealing concept.

I'm super impressed by your game - it looks, sounds and feels like a professional production!  I kept thinking of The Beginner's Guide (one of my favourites) as I played; I love the idea of a game within a game that sheds light on the creator's state of mind.  But it's way scarier than TBG!  And I like the concept of using 'found footage'.  Great work!

thank you so much!  your feedback is super encouraging :-)

you got it :-)

(also, be sure to click RESET before trying the combination again)

no problem!  thanks for asking - maybe i'll include a 1337 puzzle in the sequel!  :-)

hi cherepaxa, i'll give you a hint.  it's a bit of a spoiler, so i'm going to encode it:

go to this site:  https://cryptii.com/pipes/a1z26-cipher

click DECODE and enter the following text in the left-hand box:

thank you so much!  i hope the ending wasn't too abrupt - I'm working to flesh that out.  thanks for playing!

it's a habit i've had for about 40 years (since the days of BASIC) - writing unnecessarily long code, especially when a language is new to me.  this project is particularly inefficient - i.e., multiple IF-THENs instead of loops - but it's almost done.  i might ask for some tips on the next one, though.  Thanks!

i have a follow-up to the file size question:

in order to decrease the file size by removing cards, i'll need to increase the amount of scripting significantly.  are there any issues with having particularly long card scripts?  i currently have a 200-line script that i will need to expand to about 2000 lines.  this won't affect performance, will it?

i'm so new to using Decker, I wasn't actually aware of canvas widgets until you just mentioned them.  :-)   so, thanks, i will explore this!

i just finished cutting a bunch of redundant cards, so it's down to about 13mb now, but it's great to know that the loading wasn't bad at 20mb.  

it's also great that you and the Decker community are all so helpful.  i love being part of it!

i'm wondering if I can get your opinion on the load time for the game as it is.  it shouldn't get much slower now that i'm using two or three cards per section instead of dozens, but i can always go back and speed it up further.  here's the link:  https://waldorfhammer.itch.io/key-2

thanks, Millie!

I’m definitely going to start using more contraptions for the artwork instead of full-screen images; there’s a lot of repetition in the backgrounds.  Hopefully that will slow down the ballooning file size.  Thanks again for being so helpful!  I’m going to submit it to the Solo Development jam that’s going on right now.  Still about three weeks left if you want to join that one. 😊

I'm working on my second Decker project (the first one, 'The Key',  was my submission to the game jam last month).  I'm making a sort of sequel/remake, and I'm noticing that Decker is taking more time to save the files (.deck and .html).  Is there a recommended limit to how large Decker file sizes can be?  I'm up around 20mb now;  is it possible the game might crash or run poorly for the user?