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Ashes to Ashes's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #4 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Presentation | #5 | 2.800 | 2.800 |
| Story | #5 | 2.800 | 2.800 |
| Horror | #5 | 2.600 | 2.600 |
| Gameplay | #6 | 1.800 | 1.800 |
| Theme | #6 | 2.600 | 2.600 |
| Overall | #6 | 2.600 | 2.600 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How did you choose to implement the Theme: Depths of the Earth in your game?
The main character gets stuck in a cave which leads deeper into the earth.
Did you implement any of the optional Bonus Challenges, and if so, which ones?
I did not.
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Comments
It was fun participating in the creation of this visual novel!
I may be a bit biased, but I still tried to rate it fairly (IMO).
This game cured my depression
Story:
Interesting concept, I hadn't seen RPGMaker be used to make kinetic or visual novels before! The story at the start reminded me of Until Dawn but a little more serious, which I didn't mind. I think the horror elements could have been better explored- the first twist itself isn't too bad, and even includes a fair amount of foreshadowing that worked pretty well. However the later reveal and ending left a lot of questions unanswered. The story hints at the main character's guilt and kind of ends with a slight reveal about why he feels this way, but I don't think it's explored enough to for the player to fully empathize with him- instead the ending just feels kind of confusing, and maybe rushed?
However for a game written in six hours it does do a pretty decent job of conveying the story. I especially liked the first half, there were probably too many characters but I liked how the game tried to explore their mixed feelings about why they had come up to go camping, it felt more realistic.
Gameplay:
I'm sorry but though the kinetic novel format is interesting, there aren't really any gameplay elements in here. If there were even just some choices, closer to a visual novel, then I would be able to rate this element higher.
Presentation:
That's enough about the story I guess. The music was cute, but in some parts (especially before the first twist) I think it didn't fit some of the more serious scenes. The actual kinetic novel did fit the look of one surprisingly well also, so good job on that.
Creativity:
Also despite some of the more cliche scenes the story itself was pretty unique, even if it didn't always make sense. Some of the ideas felt a bit wild to me, but they were definitively things I hadn't seen explored before.
Horror:
I think a lot of elements did have some good foreshadowing, but I think the transition from cutesy outing to horror in the woods was a bit too quick and felt a little rushed, I think some more time on this section could have helped to make the whole game a bit more spooky and perhaps to make the ending more effective.
Theme:
For the theme, I personally wished there had been more focus on 'Depths of the Earth'- maybe the characters talk about exploring a cave early on in their trip, or maybe the "bad thing" happened somewhere dark and it's something that Kirby sometimes thinks about early on- even just including a spooky flashback at the beginning before his friend startles him out of his thoughts, I think that would have worked well in the story and also made the theme and horror blend in better.
-Final thoughts-
There's definitely some areas this project could have worked on to get higher ratings within this jam. But other than that, great work! Especially on a game made in only 6 hours, that's wild!
When I discovered this product, I was a bit confused about its nature. Indeed, I didn't know if it was a game or a book, as I was only reading without the possibility to interact. This led me to think that it would be more appropriate to add choices or interactive elements to make the experience more like a game. Indeed, I think that this would allow to engage the users more and bring an additional playful aspect.
In addition, it might be interesting to offer a downloadable version of this product, so that users can easily access it from any device. This feature would be especially appreciated by users who want to be able to access it offline or in areas with a limited internet connection.
All in all, I think these two elements could add a lot to this product and improve the user experience considerably.
Alright, now's the time for a somewhat serious review. SPOILERS:
Gameplay: It's a short visual novel without any choices or anything really adding to the gameplay, so there's not much to rate in the first place. There's also no was to save, although with how short it is that doesn't really matter. It's very basic, but at the same time there's nothing there that seriously detracts from the experience. 2 stars.
Story: So, the game is about a group of young people who go out on a camping trip in order to spread the ashes of their dead friend Scott at a specific place per his last request. The main character, Kirby, was Scott's boyfriend. They characters some banter in their camp and then they get attacked by some guy wearing a horse mask who kills everyone except Kirby, who manages to flee to a nearby cave.
In the cave, he falls through a hole in the ground to the "Depths of the Earth" and twists his ankle. He tries to get out of the cave, but the horse mask murderer finds him first and fatally wounds him. Then the murderer takes off his mask and reveals that he's actually Scott and the reason he went after Kirby is because he blames him for his death? And Scott also killed all of his friends for reasons unexplained. And he blames Kirby for his death even though he's apparently alive. If there's any supernatural elements in the game, then there's nothing even remotely suggesting that.
Also, Scott wears a horse mask, a suit and tie and uses an 18th century military bayonet as his weapon of choice. That seems kind of random and doesn't mesh together very well. The dialogue and writing in general is alright, the characters do seem like real people (mostly). However, there are certainly too many flaws and the ending reveal just comes out of nowhere. So, 2 stars.
Presentation: On the graphical side of things, the game uses what appear to be very pixelated real world photos as backgrounds, with the RTP character images on top of the default text boxes. It works, but that's about it. A visual novel really needs multiple poses and facial expressions for characters and that's not here. There's some RTP sounds and music where it's appropriate, which work fine, but nothing great. So, 2 stars.
Creativity: I guess I'll add 1 star for the horse head accountant. And using pixelated photos as backgrounds is somewhat creative. Other than that, there wasn't really anything noteworthy on that front. So, 2 stars.
Horror: Is there anything scarier than a horse head accountant? Well, to be serious for a moment, the game isn't really scary at all, but there's an attempt to implement some horror elements and overall, it can be called a horror game, just not a very good one. So, 2 stars.
Theme: Well, at the end of the game the Main Character hides in a cave and the phrase "Depths of the Earth" is used a few times at the end. However, that's about it. There's no real creative take on the theme and it doesn't have much connection to it, other than that scene at the end. So, 2 stars.
For a game that was made in 6 hours during a livestream based on suggestions from people in the chat, it could've been much worse. It's actually not that bad, just kinda bland. Good job!
YES! If I had time to actually work more on this I could probably have made something VERY different, but this was intended to just be a fun activity, so I will definitely take bland over bad any day LOL
Yeah, I certainly get that, I had a similar experience in one of the first game jams I entered :D I made a game for a game jam where the basic gameplay took me so long to figure out that I had to write all the dialogue and make all the cutscenes in just 2 hours so that I would be able to submit it at all. You actually streamed that one, I think. About a week before I finished the update that improved the gameplay and rewrote the dialogue, which I was actually a bit disappointed about :D
And to be fair, the dialogue in your game WAS good despite the time constraints, it was mostly just that unexplained plot twist at the end that made me decide to lower the rating. I also wanted to give you 3 stars for presentation, that one's more like 2.5 stars instead of 2. So, you can be sure that you did very well under the circumstances!
Thanks for participating in this game jam!
This game has a horse head accountant, therefor it's perfect. 5 stars!