Replacement for the usual itch comment section
Unfortunately I’m limited by by RPGmaker VX Ace’s export options so a native Linux port is outside my abilities atm. You might be able to find some hacky workarounds to run it though! This person on Reddit was able to run a PC VX Ace game on linux via their Steam library: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGMaker/comments/s4lhg6/i_found_a_very_easy_way_to_play_rpg_maker_vx_ace/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
Hi dev palmer,
I'm no genius, but I have theories:
Nevertheless cool game!
and also, it's very inspiring to be able to access the assets, especially (to me) the text documents, as those are what i have the most difficulty with when i attempt my own projects!! it's really kind of you to have uploaded the bonus folder and i hope it becomes a more common practice!! idk how to express this but i'm just very thankful to be able to peek inside the assets without any datamining expertise jfdfngjdfng
Nice game! I played it through twice to see the other ending. Only realised I could save my game after I'd already finished it once, but it was just as good the second time around.
Caroline is so funny. I love her happy little poses and her upbeat music and her perpetual smile. And that she keeps using smileys in what is allegedly spoken speech. How could someone as fun-loving as her mean anyone harm?
Thank you so much for the archaeology. I liked seeing all the in-progress bits and pieces, and the parts of the game that I'd missed. Or that weren't there at all? All games should do this, it shows off all the hard work you put into making the game as awesome as it is.
In particular, thanks for the time travel diagrams. I love a good time travel story, but I don't think I would have understood the causality of it all without your notes. Although... doesn't the fact that Linda can die during the chase sequence mean there should be a third ending in there? I suppose that one's not canon.
The gradually spreading corruption was really well done. It must have been a lot of work to make all those slight variations of every object in Linda's lab, but it really came together during the final scene. Gave me the creeps.
And the music was fantastic all the way through!
The tracks I wrote aren’t uploaded to stream anywhere at the moment, but I’ll see what I can do! All the music files are in the “Bonus” folder for you to check out as well.
“Learning New Shapes”, the guest track by Applemaggot, you can listen to and download here: https://applemaggot.bandcamp.com/track/learning-new-shapes
There is nothing to dislike here, the characters, music, art direction and gameplay are on point but I want to bring special attention to the world building, it is very interesting without being too in the face or to dense that it becomes a chore to learn about it, the characters all eel pretty real and natural even in the face of this undefinable horror. And we even get a antagonist that is more than just evil or deranged, this madness indeed has a method, I wonder if it's defined on it's class...
Anyway, amazing job, I hope this game gets the praise it deserves from a lot of people 5/5.
The ending seems to fall really flat? The most dramatic part of the game is probably the line when Caroline says the line about nested boxes, because it feels like she had just been setting the main characters up the whole time (and you seem to understand this, since you quoted it on the itch.io page)
But you don't do anything with it? Nothing happens to Joan? And the bad ending just feels like it's played for comedy, or like, bathos...? It's a huge anticlimax how the MC walks out with a funny looking portrait and Joan just has a single line of dialogue making a telephone call? There's no punch to it. I was expecting a lot more.
This game was some of the most fun I've had with a horror title in YEARS! The scares were great, the existential dread was awesome, and the care in the environments and character design were TO DIE FOR!
I've been telling any person who loves games to check this title out, as it's such a treat to experience! I also adored your video "Caroline and the Curious Contaigon", as it kickstarted my obsession with 3D designs and modeling.
I adored this game so much that I actually wrote a review on it for a class I'm taking! I'd love to hear any feedback, but preferably in the Itch.io comment section. I'll probably go insane from that many google doc notifs. re:curse review google doc (I also want to apologize: I would've just attached the doc to this post, but it's not allowed :[! and i think people would get annoyed if I just slapped it in one of these comment boxes, understandably so)
Thank you for making this game!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I feel honored that you enjoyed the game enough to do your report on it, and it was really fun to read 💛 Sounds like my intent came across, glad you were able to pick up on the themes I was going for 😁
I’m a programmer by day and the ways software can degrade and fail are deeply interesting to me… We put computers through a lot. If you’re ever curious, one of the main artifacts I was inspired by is called “floating point precision error,” which is a degradation you see in graphics engines when doing math with Very Large Numbers. It causes the visuals to “bubble” or “jitter” as their point positions are rounded to the closest number that the engine can actually hold in memory. Lots of the glitch effects you see ingame were done by inducing that effect artificially.
I didn't realize there were multiple endings, I think it would be more helpful if that was more apparent on the end screen. Aside from that, I really enjoyed the game. I think the writing style was very enjoyable & quirky, and the old school feel of the graphics made it very easy to get lost in this game. Keep up the good work!
the game in general is great, very beautiful graphics, very good story, and impeccable soundtrack, but I would like to see more scenarios so that it doesn't become monotonous, and I even questioned time travel from a more critical perspective, but my my head was fried so I just played and had fun
Anyway, great game!