itch.io

Thanks for checking it out!

 In theory there are two mechanisms preventing getting stuck - Hints and Thoughts. If there hasn't been any knowledge update within 8 iterations a hint is supposed to pop up in (Something like that).

I'm going with stock pictures, it's more honest that way. It's supposed to convey aura of being unpolished and rough around the edges, which it's going to be until I get more feedback.

I've got blocked by Euthanasia this time around, paralyzing and heal self is extremely effective. Cards are well designed but there should be away to equip more than one, probably after earning it in some sort of a boss fight.

It's a very unique game and a rare case of game exploring trauma without turning into cringeworthy wankfest.

Fishpeople music is great, hope I'll get further next time around.

Here goes award to 'He's literally me' moment of this DD.

I recall your dialogue demo from previous DD, I enjoyed it. I would've never guessed it'd lead me to an abandoned post soviet schizo dungeon.

As for notes - Enter shouldn't be for interaction and playing with light, it can build suspense but it also can get problematic.

Is there an insanity score and does it decrease every time you inspect item again? I might have switched focus to different item by accident but I could swear those change to random flavor texts. Music does it's job, the voice is a massive addition to horror engine. Level design is good, I did get turned around a bit but eventually learned the layout.

Can't wait to see what's down in the basement, I was also afraid to see a certain character creep just barely outside of the stream of light, or just pop up for split of a second when the light flickered.

You've got something great in the works here, hope to see more next DD

I've played around a bit, digging, cutting, fighting and crafting are all well done and work as intended. Maintained 60fps through my dig to the middle of the earth (There's nothing and you need to restart the game). It's very strong canvas that you can paint your vision on. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Everything from sound design to UI and coherent artstyle are top notch. I've got nothing of value to point out, you clearly know what you're doing and you do it well. Hope to see more.

The fluid dynamic (Or whatever you call the magic of creating fire tornadoes) is a lot of fun, goblins are not the challenge, the challenge is to stop yourself from turning everything into fiery inferno.

The way wind spreads through the environment, including caves is for lack of the better word magical. The only major downside is how easily my character dies. I do understand part of the gameplay is to keep him alive but introducing more spells, and allowing player to warden himself while bringing inferno to gobbos would be most welcome.

Extremely impressive work.

The good - Loved the manual, even though I've only skimmed it. It's been more than ten years since I've seen a new game manual and it did evoke some long lost memories of physical games. I enjoyed the premise and promise of exploration.
The bad - Granted I didn't play long, the exploration was pretty much 100% fights. I did approach several settlements only to find sleeping opportunity in there (After a fight).
The ugly - Fights are boring even by jrpg standards, there needs to be more happening, there needs to be more joy to process of fighting.

I silently hope that you've been focusing on world building for now, and you'll get to implementation of more polished game now, because the premise and passion visible in storytelling would make for a great game. Sorry if it sounds overly harsh, I'm honestly curious about next iteration.

Witcher sense would be an overkill, same with annoying blinking from RE. There are two approaches I'd favor, one is some UI indicator that you can in fact use the object just as you described. The other is consistently making every object interactible (if it makes sense obviously) even if output is just a toast message with 'There's nothing inside'.

And writing is indeed great, people do have a soft spot for something written by a human rather than a room of writers, keep up the good work lad

I'd say caffeine jitters play into that too, it's not a priority just a small inconvenience

Major thanks big guy!

Barebones but a good premise. Great use of light, needs to be built in every direction but it's honestly impressive especially since it's godot

Basic components seem to be working well, choice wheel is a bit off for my mouse, it's twitching and switching components in chaotic manner, might be too sensitive

Better tutorial is necessary, teach by example rather than wall of text. Except for the font visuals are coherent but not mind blowing.  I might be overly critical but it'd take a lot more work for me before I'd pick this up over Balatro.

Might be a hit with more work

Style is solid, shanties made me laugh.

I believe people will be filtered by inability to jump if they don't put points in, even with potions. Order of interaction is a bit counterintuitive, lets take the doors for example. Even if you have the key, basic interaction gives you basic line about the door, in order to unlock it, you have to open inventory and use it in proximity of the door, once you learn that order you can work with it, but imo there should be a check for default interaction.

I could use some sort of a clue on what's usable and what isn't. As the things are it's down to spamming Z button, I'm not saying you should slap yellow paint all over every usable object but there should be some way to tell.

I've managed to spot weird bug in the interaction with Admiral - uncle look at the time -> Sends  you into a loop of equip<=>talk. You can end it by ending convo and talking again.
All in all I believe the strongest point of the game is  your writing, hope you keep up with the updates

I've never tried Battle Network so I'm absolutely not your target audience. Spoken that, I do believe artwork, look of the cards and overall style are great and consistent. Music does it's job and it was playable on the keyboard. Only useful remark I've got is one about difficulty, I was filtered hard on Earth and it's supposed to be 1/5 in terms of difficulty, it might be a good idea to let player learn through combat, go easy on him and then raise difficulty once he gets used to basic mechanics. But then again, fans of the genre are probably already familiar with them.

Game might not be for me, but it's certainly a lot of good work done, good luck to you.

I honestly didn't expect it'd be that good. My first thought going in was 'You can't make a miamilike without a heavy list of bangers' then I had main menu music play in the background and it was pretty fucking great. I started the level and here it is, rage inducing banger, straight into my ears. It's perfect, now I'd suggest making couple more because after ~30 minutes it does get slightly repetitive. But then again every song except 'Sounds Like a Melody' has that problem.

Core gameplay is great, I initially had few problems, but they were addressed, let me give you few examples

- Why use linking when shooting them is much easier | As levels get more complicated game does motivate you to experiment more

- Why does my gun have 2m range, guns don't work like that | It adds up to the challenge and with HP instead of one shot kill it forces me to play both more creatively and closer to the enemy

I think connecting hotlinemiamilike with puzzles is daring but great choice, spoken that, if the puzzle is somewhat prone to trial by error or trial by speed, it'd be great to have something like checkpoints. I failed to execute GTA level properly because third puzzle filtered me hard and I got bored of redoing first two puzzles.

All in all looks borderline ready to ship, some more music and I'd absolutely buy it. Cheers.

Aesthetics is very much coherent. Once you type into the chat you have to click in order to get back to your person, it must be part of design but it's a tad confusing, especially since entering chat-mode doesn't allow you to scroll through the chat log or user list. I've hoped to reach the floating island in the sky but failed, I have however explored numerous environments you've prepared and all of them work well with the aesthetics you pursue.

If you're going for dead internet feel then you nailed it. I do wish they reacted to your lines somehow though.

Thanks for playing it again. I'll read the transcripts and see what happened with Sandy and sea storm. Cockroach freak was supposed to be a bit harder, instead of relying on evidence player was supposed to figure the right questions to ask, namely why does he keep repeating the pattern of moving in and out, and why wouldn't he move back with his family. The problem, as usual, is that those questions are only obvious to me and I need to make them more generic, or account for approaches other players take.

UI is certainly something I need to get back to before release. Thanks for specifics, I'll see to them.

You're correct I'm done with content and now I focus on refinement and polish. There's indeed one case you can only solve by emotional abuse, but spelling it out in the help section would trivialize the case, so instead of spelling it out, different wording might be the solution.

Big thanks for feedback!

Love the graphics, love the style, love the sound design, love the writing. Surprised by their ghost affiliation, but I'm on the love side still. Now to the bad and ugly.

The bush hiding key area to roadside discovery is gone, on the one hand this little puzzle did filter a lot of players, including me, but I was sad to see it gone. Removing puzzles to reach lowest common denominator seems like a slide to perfectly mediocre game. There must be a way to include your initial idea with a little twist rather than removing it altogether.

Small UI notes - Pin looks like sombrero ( Might have in-game explanation that I didn't catch ), Save button should have some sort of feedback (Close menu along with 'Game saved' toast). Consistent capitalization - junkyard worker was smol.

Field study section is great addition, along with the new puzzle it does let you dive into a new, bizarre world, not sure how you plan on revealing information inside of field study, single data-dump could be overwhelming and discourage player from riding, additionally new puzzle is closely tied to the field study. For now it's perfectly solvable and interesting, with data-dump it might change.

I've managed to jump into the area you didn't want player to jump, the one initially warded off with boxes, space near the car on the left of junkyard from entrance perspective. On-hover portraits are a great addition, if you ever add difficulty setting, removing them on hard difficulty, and going back to text description could be a great idea.

The pictogram puzzle, logical, solvable, great. It does raise the question, why does Mike feel the need to communicate with his worker using pictograms? I need an explanation even if it's an absurd one, maybe the worker has egyptian background and Mike believed it'd be appropriate to give him tasks with pictograms.

Great game, don't stop working on it.

I've been working on my project for a while and one week rule, well, rules me out.

I'm pretty sure unique constraint is satisfied to the fullest. In this game you're an interrogator talking to a suspect, trying to achieve certain objectives. At this point of development the primary goal is to gather feedback from users and I believe this is a great opportunity.

I care not for glory or prestige, I just want precious, precious feedback.

Cheers

Game's oozing with atmosphere. Couldn't stop to wonder how much work went into every shot. The only thing in terms of valuable feedback that came to my mind was after using certain items on self, game could get back to previous menu. Love direction you're going for and can't wait for more to come.

Bugs work in mysterious ways

Resolution problems are first to fix on my lift, thought current workaround would be good enough but it doesn't seem to work.
As for frank crash, thanks for letting me know, he's a bit of a troublemaker. Thanks for the video, always thankful for more data!

Made some notes during second approach, I see what you're going for and I'm certainly buying the game when it's out. Hopefully some of the brainstream will be useful.
First puzzle

4 options - Dockside Road | Deermouth Trails | Junkyard | Main St

1. Top sign says Downtown - Downtown includes Main Street  and Dockside Road, must be either

2. I found torn sign, it's got two bolt pattern, there are 2 suitable places for that on the sign post, unless it's a trick and it's n-th iteration of the sign

3. Map - If those things on the East are mountains, why is the town the same color | There are two possible locations that could technically be this crossraods

4. Solution is only possible if you find footsteps and the river, it does give you satisfaction if you find it, but people who wasted time on thinking within constraints of 4 given locations will be irritated

My takeaway from this puzzle - First search the available space thoroughly, THEN get to solving, otherwise you're wasting your time.

Second puzzle - Junkyard ledger

Blondie caught me off guard, aside of that it works well, once you get used to UI

Sprint might be good idea.

Why is currency tied to 2.1 loafs of bread, does it have something to do with replacement fertility rate, some lore plz.

The style, graphics, clear UI, great writing. This game is easily going to be a hit if you continue with the passion.

I picked 1.2 version and damn am I getting filtered hard. I've got 10 HP and one bad step gets me down to -55. Some enemies together create mix of attacks that's very challenging to dodge and work around, especially if you're equipped with subpar weapon.
Indiana Jones mode is pretty fun, also loved the corpse art.

Game works which is good enough.

Dungeon contained no enemies, my heroes simply wandered aimlessly. UI is decent, love the adjustable windows but something more would be good for fantasy setting.

Addition of node id on hover is solid, at some point of time one would have to consider allowing player to rotate cube by drag motion. I was a firm believe in '99% of people including me are too dumb to actually play it' but then again '5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel' sold pretty well. 

Absolutely appreciate data sharing, it does help with some unexpected ways players approach the subject.

I have made some of the cases much easier because players were confused on how to progress but with the not so subtle hints I could easily revert to more challenging ones. 

I honestly appreciate your patience with the game, I know it can easily get infuriating when you approach the case from the angle nobody else yet has

>short prototype

You've got pretty good signalisresidenthill-like in the make, graphics and style are consistent, the only thing lacking was the music. Just like finish the game lad.

So that's where all the water posting came from.
I really enjoyed it, sound design and animations are spot on. Human enemies break down in the water, simply ignoring change of environment. AI works good, stabs are a bit inconsistent. All in all good game.

Major step in a good direction, pretty amazed with the scope of progress within last two months. If you continue on the same trajectory you're gonna make it.

Two suggestions - Dogs and the way they work ask for some sort of melee attack, like a kick. Second - If you allow infinite mob generation, you should either have them drop enough ammo, or find another way to obtain it.

Thanks for checking it out, I'm glad you've got patience for it. I do appreciate extensive feedback, it's certainly going to shape following weeks of work.  There's a lot to unpack but by the next iteration it's certainly going to get better.

I might be retarded but I can't get out of the woods Each path leads to map screen but not a single place seems to be unlocked. Since overall game quality is pretty high, I'd say revealing yourself as brainlet might be the reason why you've got no comments so far.

As for what I managed to see, the bushes, the PS1 graphics (not an insult), the UI, the conversation systems - all of it is working and functional, I'd go as far as to say it's solid basis for good game. There's a lot of mechanics setting up a great detective game, but again, I can't get out of the forest to explore it.

Will certainly be back

Respect for figuring out the brass system. Loved the gameplay and soundtrack. AI in terms of following player seems hilariously uneven, little spawnoids get stuck on any obstacle while homing missles are little geniuses.

Prologue lacks introduction to the world, who's the brass guy, why does he wear a mask?

In conclusion waiting for next version.

Works good, UI is intuitive and doesn't get in the way. Enabling auto skip on default is worth considering. Also, you might want to consider system preventing me from farming love with one line, other than that great demo.

Very intuitive, easy to grasp especially if you had experience with MTG. Mechanics are properly explained, flow of the battle feels good. AI works well, managed to intercept lethals until it run out of options.

As a person with more Hearthstone and Gwent background I do think the gameplay loop is slow, but I understand MTG players will appreciate it properly.

I've got no idea why the game needs to use 70% of top shelf GPU, there has to be way to optimize that.

All in all surprisingly good

On the good side, environment is good, everything aside of jumping feels good.

On the bad side, it feels like enemies have inconsistent HP, sometimes dog dies within a second, sometimes it evades for good 5 seconds, might be spread of the gun, but still feels off. Headshots don't seem to be a thing, that is a must have.

Music is good, not sure if it's yours but it matches both game and style you seem to be going for.

Thanks, will work on more volume control options.

Thanks for trying it out, if it doesn't produce crash report, then it shall remain a mystery for now