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SOS

New BiOS by the [REDACTED] company! · By Carsthey's Studios

might be better as play in browser

A topic by Ponydragon created Apr 17, 2023 Views: 130 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 6

Did not play it, did not rate it. But reading the concept, this might work a lot better as a play in browser game. Not necessarily the effects, but willingness to play.

I for one would not download a "os" from an unknown source. Not that I would think it is a virus, but let me put it another way. Some dev makes a game with ... horror elements that are possibly breaking the 4th wall.  Some of those effects I might not want to have on my computer. It is a thing I might try out in a sandbox, like playing in browser.

Also it is suspicious that the setup.exe is smaller than the zip. I have played dozens of games from itch. Not a single one of them had a setup routine.

In an unrelated note, one of my favorite games is Eternal Darkness on Gamecube. Boy did that game eff with the 4th wall when sanity was low... ;-)

Developer

Thanks for your feedback. Note: this is not an real OS or VM of any kind, but I guess styled like one. And the reason why it's not in browser because the game is suppose to close randomly at times after an jumpscare. And the Setup was suppose to just Set up the game without you having to extract it but I understand your concerns. Sorry for any problems, tell me if I can do anything better.

of course it is not.   i stumbled upon this and saw the 1 star  rating and thought, can it be so bad?  probably not. but there is stuff around a game that can piss off users. like a botched setup routine. a setup exe is almost always slightly bigger than a naked zip. after all, it has the self extractor and probably the setup routine unlike the zip wich only has the payload. this zip is 1/3 bigger than the exe. i have played lots of rather big games and none ever had a setup routine on itch. not even the commercially successfull ones like baba is you or the upcoming backpack hero.

i did play your cat game though. for like 4 minutes. would i honestly rate it, i could not. if i were pressed, it would be 1 star, as it was not fun. waiting for three minutes to press all 3 buttons  and then waiting another long time to go to sleep?  i aborted when the cat appeared. that has to be  packaged better to be intersting. i think 5 night at freddys accomplished that.

a breaking 4th wall   jump scare game is just not my cup of tea. i have more fun writing this comment.

but ok, a short list what offends gamers:

 games that set off the virus scanner,  try to connect to the internet without reason,   ask for admin   permissions,   write stuff where it does not belong, install additional stuff including stuff that stays in the system after deinstall, mess with system settings (like display, language settigns and what not), make them think the hardware is broken,  aaand of course, all the snowflakes out there being offended by whatever they chose to be offended by today. and letting their anger out on small time devs giving them 1 star. (my lowest rating is 3 so far on itch. if a game does not interest me, why should i rate it. it would only  mess up my recommendations ;-)

i do not know much about web games, but can a web game not be made look like it crashed or be made  crash intentionally or at least exit gracefully? you can always try to trick people into pressing ctrl-w.   i remember hempuli pulling that one of, by making a platformer with f4 as the jump key. and then introducing alt as a run key and having puzzles that need you run and jump. you can imagine what happens. and then the game has the audacity to chide the player for closing the game citing the risk of save game corruption.

or just make the player restart the game, because they think it is stuck. you can always branch off into a dead end, displaying repeating error messages. use some semi plausible techno jarble about stack overflows or whatever. you can make it interactive and include the user to press the exit button.  you even promised such for this download game

If for anyone reason you are stuck somewhere and you can't interact with or close the game, press Alt + F4.

(clarification,   i did not play your game. as such i did not have any problems. my latent concern is, that you need access to the computer to pull some stunts, like  exiting the game. if that were the only thing, meh, just use a web version of a similar stunt. you will have more potential players. that's my 2 cents.)

Developer

alr, thanks for your feedback. I'll try better next time.

Developer

i can see why tho.

Developer (1 edit)

thanks for telling me about it

Developer

im still kinda new but thanks for your feedback.

Developer

Hey! I took a bit of your feedback on "might be better as play in browser" and made a browser verison! Play it here:

https://carstheysstudios.itch.io/sos-browser-edition?secret=IEW18tYf28fJhoICU0F9...

Well. That was fast. At least you have an interaction more now... ;-)

And you do have disgusting noise in the game. If   I were not suspicious and had turned down my headphones, I would curse you right now. 

The type of meta humor your game is aiming at is very hard to pull off.   Look at a lets play of Stanley Parable for a good example.

Restarting the "game" to progress is not a good mechanic. People will not get it. They see your first "jump scare" and think, that was all of it. And unlike Stanley Parable you do not deliver any goods that make the player look for more.

To clarify, I talk about restarting with meta mechanic of doing it outside the game, like  reloading page or clicking the exe again for the download version. Or having information needed for inside the game listed outside the game, like the login name. Imho you should have substance before thinking about any meta stunts.  Not make the meta stuff the stubstance.  What you did is not horror, it is annoying. Meta horror is what is happening in doki doki literature club (in addition to the nonmeta ingame horror).

Of course it is your game and you can make it anything you like. But people play games to be entertained. If you annoy them by making them needlessly start the game again, well, you annoy them.

I am not a game maker, but here is my take on the "story", how I would try to tell it.

Have the player be an office worker tasked with installing a new os on an old machine found in the surplus of the tech stash. Some interactions and some fumblings later the creepy stuff starts, like files appearing that were not installed and all sorts of  other stuff, however complex you wanna go. Like mirroring the  display, having the player type but switch letters and other shenanigans.   But all with an ingame Reset button. The interface of the game could look like a computer monitor with desktop pc below it and a restart button for the player to interact with.   And with the ingame installation game mechanic it is introduced, that the player can and must restart the ingame machine. After establishing that, I might think about adding possible meta interactions for extra creepyness.

But do not overthink this, I am very likely not your target audience.