You managed to get a really dreamlike feel into this!
Play dream
HorseMare's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Atmosphere | #43 | 3.880 | 3.880 |
| Emotional Engagement | #44 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Lasting Impression | #64 | 3.160 | 3.160 |
| Overall | #67 | 3.160 | 3.160 |
| Overall | #74 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Mental Engagement | #82 | 2.760 | 2.760 |
| Characterization | #91 | 2.960 | 2.960 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Gorgeous art style. It feels like I'm playing a piece of art.
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a Royal Midnight SnackVery beautiful game, I like the game style, the music is also very fit my taste, an unforgettable game experience：）
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Agent of Primary Color-原色使者This was surely something unexpected. The visuals are great and relaxing, and I also liked the sound design. I did play with earphones as suggested ;)
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No Rest for the WickedThis is a piece of art, wonderful to experience. once I have finished playing some more jam game, I want to take a look at some of your other games.
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Dark Light (Game Jam)Really beautiful game! It looked like a painting, but the animation and movement was still smooth. I have a soft spot for horses and boats, so this was right up in my zone. This game was a refreshing gem in this jam. Excellent work!
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SpaceshipWreckedYou have a very distinct style! I played your game "Sunshine Trial" during Ludum Dare and I found it fascinating. This feels like an evolution of the concept. I love that you are pushing the boundaries of what games can be. I really liked the background art and the music in this one.
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The spookiest nightI am the horse. This art is supremely gorgeous and the music tracks assimilate with it very well. The dialogs set a very nice mood but grammatically leave a bit to be desired. I found some of the precision required for continuing to be slightly unforgiving, like maybe we should have been allowed to chomp things in any order we choose, rather than in the specific order required. Without the hints/guide I would not have been able to see this through to the end. It kind of felt like the left/right click could maybe be merged in to the same button, like you could cue different animations based on what is clicked instead of requiring two inputs. That being said the art and atmosphere here are top notch. I get the concept is a little 'out there' but I did find myself feeling quite lost about how I was supposed to feel reaching the end.
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The Enigma of Mr. XThank you for playing! Glad you had a pleasant trip despite the gameplay issues. This story shall evolve in our next creation, for it's just a Prologue to get started and breathe in the atmosphere.
And we actually are planning to change the controls like you suggested. It's a bit too much of a horse simulation now.
However, it's a slippery slope, chasing ones grammar and the chosen way of putting words, which may result in commenting on lots of text passages presented in this jam (and other jams), desiring for them to be corrected. We won't go that way. Still, can you point out an example of what felt grammatically off in our dialogues for you? This might help our project in development.
Sure, here are a few of the lines that had me a little confused about their structure, meaning, and how I was supposed to interpret them:
-You enter the dark void of crumbling egg-shell.
-Your mic to brain malfunctioned for a while...
-A horse with a bouquet of shimmer blooms.
-When the sun comes nigh, they roll their shines there.
Specifically, the sentence structure seems a little off occasionally and it almost seemed like a few words added, changed, or rearranged might do the writing a lot of favors. I did really like the project altogether though, best of luck continuing development!
Oh, I see. Well, that's the kind of phrases we desired for, really. And yes, some of them may feel a bit off for their poetic purposes. Poetry, or poesy as some still say, sometimes mess the words and structure for the course of meaning, symbolism, and sound.
Some of the phrases in our game are riddles in connection to gameplay and the story to be continued (as in egg-shaped portal).
Some are more like specific slang (as in mic to brain malfunction) of the character, who conducts the hypnotic regression.
In a bouquet "shimmer" is a noun, and therefore may be comprehended as - a bouquet of blooms of soft wavering light (which is connected to the extra meaning behind the chosen flowers, their origins and essence, and the fields our Horse wave in - as in "sways").
The last one, sun and moon having a euphemism for intercourse (or, say, a date) - is purely poetic.
Maybe, it's just the specific writing style chosen for this story. Nevertheless, we thank you for the feedback on such interesting topic of creative writing; we understand that with more gameplay some text needs to be more clear and specific, that we'll do.
I really like the feel of this game, the atmosphere game gave me a really good feeling, its amazing and the story is really interesting! Great work!!!
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ParanlusionaryThis game was quite mysterious. I am a bit confused, but the story is still interesting. I want to see how the story will continue. The art is amazing, and the music also is. I think this game works great as a prologue. Just one thing that could be improved is the animation of the horse. You have created a great atmosphere in this game. Good job!
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Mannequin of TimeIt's ok to be a bit confused here). This prologue says a few, but it lays a solid base for the full-play game in development.
Thank you for your good supportive words, we'll keep the work done at our best. And, aye, we'll polish all (especially the playable chars) animations. We just started with the easiest, of course (self-irony here) - the horse.
First things first: I played the older version, so some of these things might have already been addressed. I had a lot of trouble finding some of the hotspots. First the thistle tops (but that was probably just the wrong order), but especially the vines. It took me a bit to find the sweet spot to hit them. The following puzzle I solved completely by accident because I had no idea what to do. But I'm bad at sound puzzles and don't really like them, so that's no surprise.
You managed to evoke this dreamy feeling perfectly. The feeling of a place where nothing and everything makes sense at the same time. The art goes very well with it. I especially love the river scene. It's just beautiful. The music and sparse sound effects worked very nicely too. A really intriguing game. :)
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Under the SeaThank you for playing and finding our game beautiful and intriguing!
It seems we have to find the better way to show hotspots in the future. We don't really want to use text for this, I think the best way is to design the scene that way the player would know what to do. Still working on that.
Sound puzzle needed more time, we're aware of how troublemakers them - sound related riddles - can be: some play games mute, some just don't like sound puzzles;). We just had that in our GDD and followed the script; however, we'll be finding the best way possible to balance sound puzzles in the future by making them more intuitive and even playable without a sound produced.
At some point we had too much going on the Field scene, so the freshness and overall simplicity of the River scene is something we wished for after squeezing through the mare portal. Glad you loved it!
P. S. We just fixed the dialogues to be rescaled to the played screen resolution (hopefully, this works). And, like, 1 collider checkbox in the Flow scene (after the River). No content, just the updates allowed - for the best played experience.
This one's a pleasant ride. All the imagery reminded me of watching The Last Unicorn when I was younger, it has a really nice warmth to it. The sound puzzle really had me messed up but the solution was easy to find on the game's page. Definitely worth a play!
Submitted
My Mother & MeWow, that's one cool memory shard you brought with you! Think, we just have to re-watch (after oh so many years) that Unicorn film.
Thank you for having this ride! We'll make sure to develop a very special approach to sound puzzles in our future game within this lore, for we are planning at least 5 of them (and we love sound, also shall produce all related sfx ourselves).
I really enjoyed the atmosphere and hidden story being told in the game play. I also think you guys beautifully used the mouse and keyboard to enhance the gameplay instead of bring it down.
I really liked the usage of dreams and to tell the viewer all of this is meaning for something bigger which we somewhat find out at the end. Very beautifully done! The art was also beautiful to the story, I can't wait to see you guys release the bigger game when it does come out :) . This is one of my fave submissions so far for the jam.
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Chloe: Tower of WarOh, we're in the faves! Thank you so merrily!!)
Can you tell us more on the controls? What is it you liked the most? We're thinking of the way to make the controls simplier in the full-play, however still intend to use mouse + keys, with keys for movement (we feel the idea of wandering through the dreamscapes is best felt with every step made/pressed, not clicked).
There's an idea of hypnotic regression behind the actual events on the screen. We shall tell more and reveal other chars and the whole story in our bigger game. Still, this little prologue acts on its own and may give lots of hints (even answers) to whatever will be in developing OutopiA.
Thanks for encouraging us!
The concept is fascinating and unusual. A pretty psychedelic atmosphere.
Somehow seeing the word “female” in dialogs instead of a name feels strange. It feels like it emphasizes the importance of something the player still needs to discover and thus can’t fully understand or appreciate yet.
The story is engaging and drags you in. I had some technical difficulties, though. In the bird scene, it is not that obvious what is going on. It looks like you are stretching toward the vines but not reaching them. And you don’t actually see the spot you need to hit to produce the sound.
On the moon scene, I couldn’t understand what to do and walked out of the screen out of interest. The horse never returned :( Maybe it fell down from the edge of the scene.
The story is quite intriguing, so I hope to try again later. Wish you all the best in developing this game!
Submitted
Ante AnimaThank you for experiencing our... session). Your feedback really helps us to develop the better game further.
Aye, "female" is used for narrative reasons. At first, it was Male and Female Voice. Then it changed into even more vague. Since this small game is a Prologue (and a test of skills) to the long-play in development, we're not making the whole story clear. It's a bit of a teaser, I think, but we can't tell more since the narrative of our future OutopiA: Hindsight game can be ruined by any specifics. Anyway, there are hooves and there are footprints - that is kinda clue.
Lots of stuff seems not very obvious, well, it's the lack of time and skill for polish, which we're gaining in at the moment. Sound puzzle is a bit bugged also, which is why we posted the solution. We should have added something to the Vines, to let know where to Neigh/Hit; this kind of issues would be fixed in our future releases, of course.
The Moon scene is quite similar to the idea of hitting Vines. You just have to Neigh and Hit the swaying Lantern to get to the finals (best hit in the center). We'd appreciate if you could manage to the very end, for the Moon scene is actually the last you really play in. And... yeah, we forgot to lock the borders, for we never thought one would stray off (but, aye, we should have!).
We've already made a list of edits and improvements to the game in development based on the feedback and own post-jam tests. Very productive event. Thank you once again!
We played again and this time finished. The art is captive and intriguing, as well as the storyline. The visuals and emotions shape the gameplay. They help players to switch off their analytical thinking and instead immerse into the flow of things. Great concept. Developing it further could make the game remarkable, especially if the technical part will be more polished.
Reach the River scene, please! It's quite musical.
Don't get stuck on the sound puzzle (simple, just not very obvious).
Check this devlog for the solution.
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