First of all, 'Metroidvania Book Game' is a pretty good hook in my opinion. I don't know about the name 'Cosmogonic Overflow' though, although I'm sure you picked it for a very specific reason.
The setting, and the atmosphere is really cool. It's like a weird sci-fy, lovecraftian thingie, and I was pretty immersed the whole way through. I especially got excited by when things got a bit meta. So, the thing were you grab a page and paste it. Or, the elevator page that has holes in it. Or the fact that you can read things across the page. That shit is cool, it ties really well with everything else, and makes me wonder what other things the game will do next.
Hated the combat, couldn't figure it out, reading the instructions pissed me off because I couldn't understand them. I ended up spamming auto-battle.
I was usually confused when backtracking. I found myself clicking on things sort of wishing they would led me to where I wanted to go. I got disoriented pretty quickly. It didn't cause me issues to progress forward, however, I guess.
The other thing is, sometimes I feared forgetting something, and would note it down on a physical paper. I wish there was a way to do that in-game.
A couple of little improvements:
* When you get mind scrambled by the last enemy, it would be nice if you explicitly hinted in bold that the keywords got changed, because I thought it was a bug when my keywords didn't work
* It'd be nice if you didn't have to open the menu to access the 'Password' button, I wish it was just out in the open, since it's such an integral part of traversing through the book
* I didn't notice the 'Paste' button at first when pasting the cut page, and wandered around confused for some time. It'd be nice if it was more visible somehow. I also tried to drag the page into the book, which it would have been nice if it'd worked.
Presentation wise, what you have is pretty good. But I'm going to be overly critical just because your concept is so good. So, first, the drawings and the 3D effect on the book is perfect. The pages themselves feel a bit flat, like it's just a gradient, they remind me more of a webpage, rather than a book page, if that makes sense. In that same vein, the links look literally like web hyperlinks. Again, nitpick, but I feel like that's like slightly off the setting. And finally, the turning page animation is a bit too simple. I also wish that you could see many pages turning when you skip pages. Some VFX to juice it up and make everything more creepy and unsettling would be nice I think, although I don't have anything particular in mind. And lastly, just a thought, but it would be nice if the setting sort of creeped through the page. So, in an area that has fungus, maybe the page gets moldy. That'd be cool. All in all, again, your presentation is cool, and it doesn't deter from the experience, but if you really juice it up it could be something really amazing, I think.
Uhhh... So yeah, I think your execution of the concept is pretty godlike. The demo definitely leaves me with very big expectations. If you ever release a full version I'd be stocked to play this. Very, very cool bro.
Thank you very much! The video is very useful of course. I already lost all hope to see someone make it through using the normal route, so it was a great surprise.
The title connects two opposing themes, and it ties 3 different concepts together, so I just had to use it even if it sounds weird. You were almost onto my naming scheme while checking out the "Fault Line" meaning (so the answer is, it was both, kind of). Even though I don't use linguistic puzzles that kind of wordplay is all over the game.
As for the brain scrambler, my trickery kind of worked for a moment even though you were taking notes. I guess it's not a viable idea in the end because it's immersion breaking. It was still very cool to see someone get caught by that (I wish there was a way to erase memory so I can experience it myself). If you were worried about forgetting things that's actually even better, even though it's supposed to be chapter 2's gimmick alone. The next demo should have Journal and Scribble functions implemented for information organizing.
The drag and drop for pasting pages actually makes sense, I will add that. The password accessability is kind of tricky to improve... I guess holding shift key to enter or open might work out?
The navigation is a huge problem, and you are right that I will hit a wall while trying to expand the game. I plan on adding more decorations to help with orientation, so stuff like mold aren't out of the question (I was going for it with the greenish tint on the images, but didn't go all the way with it since it's a 3 week prototype). VFX is a tricky matter, because aside from the sounds I'm very strict about the book format. I have to check how flat can some electric motors go, so until then I'm limited by page turning force and manual operation.
As for the question from the video, my other project is Space Dementia.
I liked your reaction at "Sector-Page", now I'm definetely leaving that in. Thanks for playing, you made my day!
> As for the brain scrambler, my trickery kind of worked for a moment even though you were taking notes. I guess it's not a viable idea in the end because it's immersion breaking.
Ohhh, ok, I see what you were going for. Then I wouldn't necesarily give up on the concept of just fucking with the player then without really explaining it to him. Maybe you could fuck with the player in a really direct and obvious way at first just to set the player's expectations. I think with something like that, when my password didn't work I would've leaned more towards 'oh wait is that shit happening again?' instead of 'is this a bug?'. Maybe.
> The password accessability is kind of tricky to improve... I guess holding shift key to enter or open might work out?
Maybe? Doesn't seem very comfortable though. My key complaint is the fact that an important function of the game is three clicks away: 1. clicking menu arrow, 2. clicking password, 3. clicking on the text bar, and then type the password. It's not the biggest of deals, but I did feel a little bit of resistance every time I had to enter a password.
> As for the question from the video, my other project is Space Dementia.
Ohh shit, you're that one engine dev. You're goated.
This is a great concept that I wish I could play more of, but my browser (Firefox) seems to not like the battle phases. Dragging cards into where they go is hellish, and won't work most of the time. I had to repeat the dragging five times to get it to work at times. I would play it more if there was a desktop version.
I enjoy the CYOA concept though I'm not sure if being able to read (since you can) a page that you cannot flip to next to the one you're own is intentional. The ones I found didn't necessarily clue me in on that.
The other thing I really want to comment on is that while it's helpful to always have them there as a reminder, the battle rules menu being the only way you can learn how to fight is definitely not good. There is a lot to it that uses terms that are not properly represented in the battle UI, so it doesn't make for a good visual learning experience, so to say. It took me the entire fight to decipher what was going on, and even then it felt like my actions didn't really seem that meaningful - I'd assume this is alleviated once you get more cards and are able to fight faster, but this time around that was just not possible for me.
Firefox is my nemesis and it gets an Internet Explorer seal of quality for its 3d implementation. I guess the dragging problem might be the drop cursor not being very visible? There might be another factor, but that should be pixel perfect.
Packaging it into a reliable app is a good idea, I will do that in the future.
Reading adjacent pages is not intentional (I added it to the first page's rules yesterday), but I'm not specifically strict about that.
Combat needs to be scrapped altogether, maybe to a point where next demo will be puzzles and story focused. And yeah, the goal is to make the decks more meaningful for metroidvania progression. You can play just fine with autobattle button if you want to continue (it won't always win but it will get the job done).
Puzzles sound interesting, I'm looking forward to it.
Regarding the dragging; it had a "forbidden" cursor going on. Sometimes if I hovered for very long over where I should drop them it would then switch to a different cursor at which point it'd work.
absolutely amazing demo, played the first chapter and there were tons of incredible ideas appearing there already
I feel like combat could benefit from being simplified, I don't quite the purpose of all the stack overflow stuff you have
the password system is a little clunky and confusing, it would be cool if instead of memorizing these commands you could collect verbs like you do with cards and pages
Truly unique game. It is one of those choose your own adventure books, but with moody music, fancy paper 3D effects and cards!
I feel a bit dumb, but I'm stuck in the elevator. The text to go to page 47 is there, but I cannot click it so I can't advance. I already tried to use "SQUEEZE" everywhere so I have no idea whats going on. The combat is interesting, but I thing it still needs some tweaking. It feels both complex and RNG dependent while having way too many different cards introduced at the start.
Other posters have already pointed out things I wanted to mention and better than I could. This looks super promising, I hope you will be able to develope it further
Thanks! If you are stuck inside of the elevator, you can move it around. I need to add an interactivity symbol which will also feed into some cool puzzles later on. If you still need to get inside, you access it after breaking the tube.
Ah I see. I speed run over the tight vent part of the tube text. I might have tried to use squeeze on the opposite page, since both pages are visible at the same time I expected the word to work no matter which page was being focused. I also had problems with this when writing "AUTHORIZE".
Quite a few people had this problem when seeing someone play, but I assumed it's a matter of getting used to. No choice but to shift the camera, I guess.
I had a pretty enjoyable experience with this project. It's definitely very nostalgic of the choose-your-own-adventure books. I liked the tearing and pasting the ripped page concept too.
The combat I kind of found a little confusing but not really bad, just a bit tedious to only be able to play 1 card and discard 1 card every turn. Would like to be able to do multiple or just less steps in general. I found myself just smashing the autobattle button (which is a cool feature though)
I agree 100%. At first I had 2 actions to play at once, however that makes evasion really hard to do which is the entire premise of this card game. I just got an idea to try, but that might make it even more confusing. Thanks for playing, I'm glad that at least one person didn't get frustrated.
Well, it's not quite similar to the average CYOA, so it only resembles Zebes Invasion Order.
You are a genius. Playing before sleep is a great niche, even though it might get in the way of puzzle solving. I wish I could just use a dark theme to not fuck up people's eyes, but there's too many design decisions against that. Thanks for the feedback.
Very interesting unique game. I don't really get why you went with a sci-fi setting combined with an old school book though, seems like clashing themes but perhaps you have an idea for it. Combat seemed a bit weird to me, most of the fights ran out of time because I couldn't do damage fast enough and if you don't get enough attack cards it seems like there's nothing you can do about it. At first I expected your deck to get shuffled when you've exhausted it, but the combat just ends for some reason. The combat can definitely work if you tweak it I think though.
Spelling error on pg. 57, but it was the only one I noticed so that's good.
Thanks for playing. It's a weird kind of retro science fiction that uses prerecorded media for everything. It's not perfect by any means, but at this point the book form and narrative are inseparably binded together.
I kind of want the combat to be fast, so stalemates are a part of that. Ultimately I need to find a way to do make it quick, have somewhat higher but not permanent stakes, and have less RNG.
Like Captain Dreamcast said, the visual style is very lovely. It is a game I didn't not get to play very long, but I am curious how it is going to turn out. I don't know if it will be for me, but it will be for someone.
Beautiful visual style, I love the 3D effect when you wiggle the book, that was great. In general the book style worked incredibly well, this was probably my favorite choose-your-own-adventure-novel in video game form. Stuff like pasting missing pages or removing cards from the book, that was very fun and creative!
I couldn't make it to the end though, I kept getting sent to chapter -2 (I think I used the arrow keys where I wasn't supposed to, mostly around chapter 2, maybe you can reproduce that) and I have run out of bookmarks, so I can't start a new game. I got as far as the brain scrambler guy, and lost a couple of times against him (not sure if I could beat him, he really kept beating me hard).
The next Page being blurred is weird. I can look at both Pages of a book at the same Time, why not in your Game?
Has a nice bookflipping sound, but I guess no background music.
That Teleportation chamber pic has me thinking its literally just construction a new Body for me, sending over neurological data, then destroying my old one. Please don't be something like that, thats horrifying. Nice quality on the Pictures tho.
And then there's empty pages and "loading" pages, those don't make Sense. The loading ones for story reasons maybe, but if you use empty new spaces for new Chapters or something, you should put them on the right side, so you flip over into a new chapter, not start on a new chapter with its blank page.
With the first Investigate trigger, it has me thinking its one of those choose your own adventure books, but in Videogame form. Neat. But then I go back to the previous Page? This feels odd. And then it starts jumping back and forth constantly. If its not leading to a new route, just have the taking of the first aid kit on the same Page.
Combat apparently is forced. Theres no buildup to the crab enocunter, and I can just back out however I want, but I can't continue until I deal with it. A forced tutorial encounter is fine, but some buildup would be nice, not just "you encounter Crab, go fight it".
Its nice to have the combat helper at the bottom. I apparently also am forced to discard at least a card per turn?
Took a bit, I thought I had to fill out, but overflowing makes Sense. Apparently I lost. Didn't have enough attack Cards, Combat seems horribly unbalanced. But thats okay, I can just try again, loosing probably more attack cards I actually need. Won by sheer luck of the enemy crab deciding not to play anything in their Turn, which I thought was impossible.
Interesting Idea with using the Passwords to backtrack for an alternate Route. but a bit weird in the book format.
The Elevator is visually nice, but a bit confusing. I kept thinking when I exit the elevator I should end up on the outside, but apparently I'm in a limbo state between elevator and outside page and have to move to that page extra.
Why do I have to discard down to 2 every turn, thats stupid. And why does the AI go before me, I can't react to what they draw, I just take damage and if I'm lucky enough to survive, I can try to do something. And evasion does basically nothing, I can't overflow high enough to remove the lowest card, and AI consistently just fills it up in one turn fully to cause an attack for like 4 or 5 damage.
Either way, Plant is dead. And I can't return back up top with my Lantern, since the fight blocks the way back. Unless I loose it, which I can't since its already dead. So I can't illuminate the dark passages encountered before, time to fight the Brain guy, which I'm pretty clearly not going to beat. 25 Health, and a 6/1 + 2/4 attack on the Starting hand? I'm going to take 6 damage the second turn with nothing to do about it, unless I understood your Combat system wrong, since I can't evade for 4, and I can't block more then 1.
And then I have to backtrack a bunch of steps before rematching, which are completely useless, since I can't go back further anyway, to try out another path.
Tried autobattle after a few times to see if its better, but that just caused me to take 20 damage or so in the first Turn and instantly loose.
I'm sure theres something in the previous dark tunnels that gives me a lot of damage cards, because if there isn't theres no way to defeat that Guy, I just don't have enough damage in the Deck to deal 25HP, even if they don't block. But thats useless either way, since I can't backtrack to those dark places, so I'm going to end here.
The final fight is unfair on purpose. It spits you out into the Roundabout start, which allows you to go all the way back. I have no idea what am I doing wrong and how to make it more clear. If you still want to finish the game, it's a short segment, so you just have to head left after losing the fight.
Trying to condense interactive parts into the same pages like the med kit is a good advice. I will try to fit things like that in. Elevator needs a panel graphic to make it clear what it's supposed to be.
Was there no background music at all? I did make it quiet to not get in the way of reading, but should still be audible.
Maybe there was later on. There wasn't initially or I didn't hear any, so I jsut started playing some Nausicaa in the background. Ruined the mood probably, but with those creepy enemies, that might've been for the better.
i think this is above my reading level cuz i keep wondering "wtf is all this future shit" and just have to infer that "its just some future shit i guess"
i like reading books and i like more interactive visual novels but this was kinda a weird inbetween for me, iduno i just didnt really feel like having to remember to type certain things or having to get lost trying to find the right page numbers to click on really added much to the experience.
i mean its prolly still hot 10/10 material after liek having it proofread by an english speaker but i don't really know cuz i only got a tiny ways in because autobattle button wont beat the brain egg scrambler and i cant find the button to just walk around him???
I guess I have to reserve some space to fit more exposition about the civilization a bit earlier into the game. Though I still prefer making it inconspicuous and revealing its aspects, math system and symbology through the upcoming conflict.
Walking around brain scrambler is the default action, whether you win or lose. I think I have to make it clear that it's a U-turn and chapter structure is not linear.
-Tell the player about the menu button at the start. "The menu button near your nose" is too cryptic and the little chevron is easy to miss.
-Add the option to have the music loop.
-I don't see an inventory anywhere. If you let go of the mouse button before reading what an item does you're SOL.
-There doesn't seem to be any way to restart the game other than deleting the cookie.
-Backtracking is a nightmare with all the arbitrary one-way paths and jumping back and forth between pages. Needs a map, or at the very least "tight" needs to be colored to stand out better.
-Tooltips for player cards during combat are blurry.
-The brain scrambler is really RNG heavy since you have to use the singular hole card to be able to hurt it at all. I thought it was one of those fights you were meant to lose at first. Can enemies steal the hole card?
-The tooltip for the card you get from the brain scrambler goes outside the edge of the screen.
Some misspellings/typos/grammar mistakes I noticed:
P 54: automata --> automaton
P 55: much hits --> many hits; attacks --> attack(s); stallmate --> stalemate
P 57: missing "an" before "overly"; don't panic --> not panic
P 39: on --> one
P 70: phenomenon --> phenomena
P 72 : Probably the phenomenon has --> The phenomenon has probably
P 67: Missing comma in last sentence.
P 76: a form --> the form
There were some missing articles I noticed earlier, but again, I can't restart the game to double check.
Thanks for the proof reading, that's a lifesaver since I would never notice it on my own. You can restart the game in the menu through Save & Close.
The arbitrary one way path is there for a reason, but I guess I need to add it to the texts. Same goes for the brain scrambler difficulty. Defeating him is not advised, and will make you miss some content. I guess that's why you judged the roundabout path as annoying.
Inventory is out of scope for now. And enemy can steal any card.
I wanted to ask how was your general experience, but after attempting the brain scrambler fight and actually defeating him I get the idea.
I don't really play text based games or point and clicks, but I really really enjoyed this. You are a great writer and you do a great job of hiding clues and making a solid puzzle game. Great sound design, the theme is spooky, and it was thoroughly enjoyable. Great job!! Main constructive feedback are UI issues, make that main menu button more noticeable, I missed some other menu items.
Thanks really much! Seeing someone play is really valuable to me.
Now I can see that the game often breaks immersion through UI stuff, like making you think something broke, but there were at most some graphical glitches (god damn it firefox).
And I sure as hell didn't expect someone to call me a great writer. This is my greatest weakness, actually.
Its true you are a good writer! And yes I am a minority with Firefox -- I'd say if it works in Chrome you're fine, that's what the majority of the browser market uses anyway
I know that feel. Both writing and too much reading in games is my bane, on top of being ESL. That's why it really just requires reading bold and italics keywords to get through, and I'm not doing any text based puzzles.
I really like the concept. I used to read those "choose your own adventure books" when I was younger and this is a more interactive version of it. The game doesn't actually say what the controls are like the main menu where you can get stuck after finding the password is AUTHORIZE and not knowing how to put it in. Outside of that, maybe making some pages react to what the player does like opening the door being automatic after the first time doing it.
Really enjoyed the concept. I just beat the brain scrambler, but I'm confused on how to continue. I just end up on page 66 again where I can either go back to the pseudopede or return to the entrance. I'm probably missing something really obvious here and I'll take another look at it later.
The "go to page X" prompts at the bottom really need to describe the physical action that they entail similar to the other options like "Enter the side path (Go to page X)" or "Leap of faith (Go to page X)" imo. I always assumed they were equivalent to "go forwards/backwards" but there are some instances where that doesn't seem to be the case (going to page 66 after beating the brain scrambler doesn't give the option to go back)
Maybe some pages could be updated dynamically after the player completes certain tasks? Like after defeating an enemy, the player should have the option to backtrack from its encounter page since it's already dead. After inputting the "authorize" password, the page should be updated to the player doesn't have to enter it again if they go back a page.
Combat was interesting, but I think a lot of players will get filtered by the presentation. The combat instructions shown before the first fight should saved somewhere and be readable at any time, even in the middle of combat. The guide itself should incorporate more visuals instead of describing it in words only.
Simple notifications for when the player attempts to perform an invalid action, highlighting valid locations a player can drag a card when they are holding it, etc, could go a long way in helping players figure things out
The password system seems potentially cool, but kinda superfluous in what I've played so far. I don't see any benefit in having the text input option over having a set list of options to choose from and I don't know how to design such a use case that doesn't just turn the game into a pseudo-text-based-adventure.
Dynamic elements like the elevator, card envelope rewards, missing pages, spinny bits etc were very cool and I'd love to see more things like that
The writing was good enough that I read it.
Really liked what I played so far. Don't know how you'll develop it further mechanically, but just having the world/story be fleshed out more would be cool by itself
It's a one way path, and since you have found the item, you can use it in places earlier in the game.
Congrats on beating the brain scrambler, though that means you will miss the most interesting gimmick. Just how much hp am I supposed to give this thing?
I think you might change your opinion on saving phrases after you play through all the content (though I would love to just autocomplete them in the UI if I find the middleground). Having option selection could also prevent player from thinking outside the box in the long run and get him stuck in only available options.
Combat readability and tutorial does need lots of work. I pretty much traded slow learning curve for a crash course due to demo restrictions. That's why the first enemy has somewhat equal strength.
Hey it's the game based on my shitpost. Thanks for the in-game shoutout at the end.
This is pretty cool. Reminds me of the ancient online fad of bite-sized sequential storytelling.
I love the art, in particular the enemy designs.
I can visualize how the password system could be used in all sorts of interesting, less obvious ways. How would you translate that to book format?
I remember I had a book as a kid that came with a special sort of lens that would let you see invisible text, so I guess that could be an idea for a trick up your sleeve if you want.
It would be nice if you could turn the page by dragging it when applicable.
A bookmark feature would be convenient for navigation but I suppose that might get in the way when you want to restrict players from returning to a location.
Thanks for playing and for the idea. In the end it seems you were 100% right judging from general lack of feedback.
I was thinking about some sort of decoding table for the password system. The only conditions it needs to satisfy is obscuring available passwords and be somewhat simple to use.
I would say that teleporting at will is a no-no in a metroidvania, especially when there are gimmicks like the one at the end part (since all of those are separate pages, that would let you escape). I have ideas for fast travel, but the only way to make usual navigating less cumbersome are shortcuts and condensing the content.
Stuff like lenses are of course an option. For example magnifying glass would be used to search for tiny clues, ultraviolet light that was originally supposed to be used for the dark rooms, and either lenses or cards with holes for decoding texts.
Touch screens already have page turning through swipe. I guess it would be a good idea to port it for mouse controls.
Comments
Hey.
First of all, 'Metroidvania Book Game' is a pretty good hook in my opinion. I don't know about the name 'Cosmogonic Overflow' though, although I'm sure you picked it for a very specific reason.
The setting, and the atmosphere is really cool. It's like a weird sci-fy, lovecraftian thingie, and I was pretty immersed the whole way through. I especially got excited by when things got a bit meta. So, the thing were you grab a page and paste it. Or, the elevator page that has holes in it. Or the fact that you can read things across the page. That shit is cool, it ties really well with everything else, and makes me wonder what other things the game will do next.
Hated the combat, couldn't figure it out, reading the instructions pissed me off because I couldn't understand them. I ended up spamming auto-battle.
I was usually confused when backtracking. I found myself clicking on things sort of wishing they would led me to where I wanted to go. I got disoriented pretty quickly. It didn't cause me issues to progress forward, however, I guess.
The other thing is, sometimes I feared forgetting something, and would note it down on a physical paper. I wish there was a way to do that in-game.
A couple of little improvements:
* When you get mind scrambled by the last enemy, it would be nice if you explicitly hinted in bold that the keywords got changed, because I thought it was a bug when my keywords didn't work
* It'd be nice if you didn't have to open the menu to access the 'Password' button, I wish it was just out in the open, since it's such an integral part of traversing through the book
* I didn't notice the 'Paste' button at first when pasting the cut page, and wandered around confused for some time. It'd be nice if it was more visible somehow. I also tried to drag the page into the book, which it would have been nice if it'd worked.
Presentation wise, what you have is pretty good. But I'm going to be overly critical just because your concept is so good. So, first, the drawings and the 3D effect on the book is perfect. The pages themselves feel a bit flat, like it's just a gradient, they remind me more of a webpage, rather than a book page, if that makes sense. In that same vein, the links look literally like web hyperlinks. Again, nitpick, but I feel like that's like slightly off the setting. And finally, the turning page animation is a bit too simple. I also wish that you could see many pages turning when you skip pages. Some VFX to juice it up and make everything more creepy and unsettling would be nice I think, although I don't have anything particular in mind. And lastly, just a thought, but it would be nice if the setting sort of creeped through the page. So, in an area that has fungus, maybe the page gets moldy. That'd be cool. All in all, again, your presentation is cool, and it doesn't deter from the experience, but if you really juice it up it could be something really amazing, I think.
Uhhh... So yeah, I think your execution of the concept is pretty godlike. The demo definitely leaves me with very big expectations. If you ever release a full version I'd be stocked to play this. Very, very cool bro.
Have a video in case you find it useful:
Thank you very much! The video is very useful of course. I already lost all hope to see someone make it through using the normal route, so it was a great surprise.
The title connects two opposing themes, and it ties 3 different concepts together, so I just had to use it even if it sounds weird. You were almost onto my naming scheme while checking out the "Fault Line" meaning (so the answer is, it was both, kind of). Even though I don't use linguistic puzzles that kind of wordplay is all over the game.
As for the brain scrambler, my trickery kind of worked for a moment even though you were taking notes. I guess it's not a viable idea in the end because it's immersion breaking. It was still very cool to see someone get caught by that (I wish there was a way to erase memory so I can experience it myself). If you were worried about forgetting things that's actually even better, even though it's supposed to be chapter 2's gimmick alone. The next demo should have Journal and Scribble functions implemented for information organizing.
The drag and drop for pasting pages actually makes sense, I will add that. The password accessability is kind of tricky to improve... I guess holding shift key to enter or open might work out?
The navigation is a huge problem, and you are right that I will hit a wall while trying to expand the game. I plan on adding more decorations to help with orientation, so stuff like mold aren't out of the question (I was going for it with the greenish tint on the images, but didn't go all the way with it since it's a 3 week prototype). VFX is a tricky matter, because aside from the sounds I'm very strict about the book format. I have to check how flat can some electric motors go, so until then I'm limited by page turning force and manual operation.
As for the question from the video, my other project is Space Dementia.
I liked your reaction at "Sector-Page", now I'm definetely leaving that in. Thanks for playing, you made my day!
> As for the brain scrambler, my trickery kind of worked for a moment even though you were taking notes. I guess it's not a viable idea in the end because it's immersion breaking.
Ohhh, ok, I see what you were going for. Then I wouldn't necesarily give up on the concept of just fucking with the player then without really explaining it to him. Maybe you could fuck with the player in a really direct and obvious way at first just to set the player's expectations. I think with something like that, when my password didn't work I would've leaned more towards 'oh wait is that shit happening again?' instead of 'is this a bug?'. Maybe.
> The password accessability is kind of tricky to improve... I guess holding shift key to enter or open might work out?
Maybe? Doesn't seem very comfortable though. My key complaint is the fact that an important function of the game is three clicks away: 1. clicking menu arrow, 2. clicking password, 3. clicking on the text bar, and then type the password. It's not the biggest of deals, but I did feel a little bit of resistance every time I had to enter a password.
> As for the question from the video, my other project is Space Dementia.
Ohh shit, you're that one engine dev. You're goated.
> Thanks for playing, you made my day!
♥
This is a great concept that I wish I could play more of, but my browser (Firefox) seems to not like the battle phases. Dragging cards into where they go is hellish, and won't work most of the time. I had to repeat the dragging five times to get it to work at times. I would play it more if there was a desktop version.
I enjoy the CYOA concept though I'm not sure if being able to read (since you can) a page that you cannot flip to next to the one you're own is intentional. The ones I found didn't necessarily clue me in on that.
The other thing I really want to comment on is that while it's helpful to always have them there as a reminder, the battle rules menu being the only way you can learn how to fight is definitely not good. There is a lot to it that uses terms that are not properly represented in the battle UI, so it doesn't make for a good visual learning experience, so to say. It took me the entire fight to decipher what was going on, and even then it felt like my actions didn't really seem that meaningful - I'd assume this is alleviated once you get more cards and are able to fight faster, but this time around that was just not possible for me.
I'm looking forward to future updates!
Firefox is my nemesis and it gets an Internet Explorer seal of quality for its 3d implementation. I guess the dragging problem might be the drop cursor not being very visible? There might be another factor, but that should be pixel perfect.
Packaging it into a reliable app is a good idea, I will do that in the future.
Reading adjacent pages is not intentional (I added it to the first page's rules yesterday), but I'm not specifically strict about that.
Combat needs to be scrapped altogether, maybe to a point where next demo will be puzzles and story focused. And yeah, the goal is to make the decks more meaningful for metroidvania progression. You can play just fine with autobattle button if you want to continue (it won't always win but it will get the job done).
Thanks for playing!
Puzzles sound interesting, I'm looking forward to it.
Regarding the dragging; it had a "forbidden" cursor going on. Sometimes if I hovered for very long over where I should drop them it would then switch to a different cursor at which point it'd work.
absolutely amazing demo, played the first chapter and there were tons of incredible ideas appearing there already
I feel like combat could benefit from being simplified, I don't quite the purpose of all the stack overflow stuff you have
the password system is a little clunky and confusing, it would be cool if instead of memorizing these commands you could collect verbs like you do with cards and pages
really excited to see more!
Truly unique game. It is one of those choose your own adventure books, but with moody music, fancy paper 3D effects and cards!
I feel a bit dumb, but I'm stuck in the elevator. The text to go to page 47 is there, but I cannot click it so I can't advance. I already tried to use "SQUEEZE" everywhere so I have no idea whats going on. The combat is interesting, but I thing it still needs some tweaking. It feels both complex and RNG dependent while having way too many different cards introduced at the start.
Other posters have already pointed out things I wanted to mention and better than I could. This looks super promising, I hope you will be able to develope it further
Thanks! If you are stuck inside of the elevator, you can move it around. I need to add an interactivity symbol which will also feed into some cool puzzles later on. If you still need to get inside, you access it after breaking the tube.
Ah I see. I speed run over the tight vent part of the tube text. I might have tried to use squeeze on the opposite page, since both pages are visible at the same time I expected the word to work no matter which page was being focused. I also had problems with this when writing "AUTHORIZE".
Quite a few people had this problem when seeing someone play, but I assumed it's a matter of getting used to. No choice but to shift the camera, I guess.
Wow this is super unique
I had a pretty enjoyable experience with this project. It's definitely very nostalgic of the choose-your-own-adventure books. I liked the tearing and pasting the ripped page concept too.
The combat I kind of found a little confusing but not really bad, just a bit tedious to only be able to play 1 card and discard 1 card every turn. Would like to be able to do multiple or just less steps in general. I found myself just smashing the autobattle button (which is a cool feature though)
I agree 100%. At first I had 2 actions to play at once, however that makes evasion really hard to do which is the entire premise of this card game. I just got an idea to try, but that might make it even more confusing. Thanks for playing, I'm glad that at least one person didn't get frustrated.
Very interesting, I never read a choose your own adventure book before, but I am familiar with the concept.
Never thought I would actually say this, but I think this would be a good experience on mobile, specially late in the night right before sleep.
But I feel it would work even better with a fantasy theme.
Well, it's not quite similar to the average CYOA, so it only resembles Zebes Invasion Order.
You are a genius. Playing before sleep is a great niche, even though it might get in the way of puzzle solving. I wish I could just use a dark theme to not fuck up people's eyes, but there's too many design decisions against that. Thanks for the feedback.
Very interesting unique game. I don't really get why you went with a sci-fi setting combined with an old school book though, seems like clashing themes but perhaps you have an idea for it. Combat seemed a bit weird to me, most of the fights ran out of time because I couldn't do damage fast enough and if you don't get enough attack cards it seems like there's nothing you can do about it. At first I expected your deck to get shuffled when you've exhausted it, but the combat just ends for some reason. The combat can definitely work if you tweak it I think though.
Spelling error on pg. 57, but it was the only one I noticed so that's good.
Thanks for playing. It's a weird kind of retro science fiction that uses prerecorded media for everything. It's not perfect by any means, but at this point the book form and narrative are inseparably binded together.
I kind of want the combat to be fast, so stalemates are a part of that. Ultimately I need to find a way to do make it quick, have somewhat higher but not permanent stakes, and have less RNG.
Like Captain Dreamcast said, the visual style is very lovely. It is a game I didn't not get to play very long, but I am curious how it is going to turn out. I don't know if it will be for me, but it will be for someone.
Beautiful visual style, I love the 3D effect when you wiggle the book, that was great. In general the book style worked incredibly well, this was probably my favorite choose-your-own-adventure-novel in video game form. Stuff like pasting missing pages or removing cards from the book, that was very fun and creative!
I couldn't make it to the end though, I kept getting sent to chapter -2 (I think I used the arrow keys where I wasn't supposed to, mostly around chapter 2, maybe you can reproduce that) and I have run out of bookmarks, so I can't start a new game. I got as far as the brain scrambler guy, and lost a couple of times against him (not sure if I could beat him, he really kept beating me hard).
Here's a screenshot how it looks for me right now
Oh shit, I added invalid link placeholders last minute and didn't think about the arrow navigations. Sorry!
Fixed, thought the save slots are fucked.
The next Page being blurred is weird. I can look at both Pages of a book at the same Time, why not in your Game?
Has a nice bookflipping sound, but I guess no background music.
That Teleportation chamber pic has me thinking its literally just construction a new Body for me, sending over neurological data, then destroying my old one. Please don't be something like that, thats horrifying. Nice quality on the Pictures tho.
And then there's empty pages and "loading" pages, those don't make Sense. The loading ones for story reasons maybe, but if you use empty new spaces for new Chapters or something, you should put them on the right side, so you flip over into a new chapter, not start on a new chapter with its blank page.
With the first Investigate trigger, it has me thinking its one of those choose your own adventure books, but in Videogame form. Neat. But then I go back to the previous Page? This feels odd. And then it starts jumping back and forth constantly. If its not leading to a new route, just have the taking of the first aid kit on the same Page.
Combat apparently is forced. Theres no buildup to the crab enocunter, and I can just back out however I want, but I can't continue until I deal with it. A forced tutorial encounter is fine, but some buildup would be nice, not just "you encounter Crab, go fight it".
Its nice to have the combat helper at the bottom. I apparently also am forced to discard at least a card per turn?
Took a bit, I thought I had to fill out, but overflowing makes Sense. Apparently I lost. Didn't have enough attack Cards, Combat seems horribly unbalanced. But thats okay, I can just try again, loosing probably more attack cards I actually need. Won by sheer luck of the enemy crab deciding not to play anything in their Turn, which I thought was impossible.
Interesting Idea with using the Passwords to backtrack for an alternate Route. but a bit weird in the book format.
The Elevator is visually nice, but a bit confusing. I kept thinking when I exit the elevator I should end up on the outside, but apparently I'm in a limbo state between elevator and outside page and have to move to that page extra.
Why do I have to discard down to 2 every turn, thats stupid. And why does the AI go before me, I can't react to what they draw, I just take damage and if I'm lucky enough to survive, I can try to do something. And evasion does basically nothing, I can't overflow high enough to remove the lowest card, and AI consistently just fills it up in one turn fully to cause an attack for like 4 or 5 damage.
Either way, Plant is dead. And I can't return back up top with my Lantern, since the fight blocks the way back. Unless I loose it, which I can't since its already dead. So I can't illuminate the dark passages encountered before, time to fight the Brain guy, which I'm pretty clearly not going to beat. 25 Health, and a 6/1 + 2/4 attack on the Starting hand? I'm going to take 6 damage the second turn with nothing to do about it, unless I understood your Combat system wrong, since I can't evade for 4, and I can't block more then 1.
And then I have to backtrack a bunch of steps before rematching, which are completely useless, since I can't go back further anyway, to try out another path.
Tried autobattle after a few times to see if its better, but that just caused me to take 20 damage or so in the first Turn and instantly loose.
I'm sure theres something in the previous dark tunnels that gives me a lot of damage cards, because if there isn't theres no way to defeat that Guy, I just don't have enough damage in the Deck to deal 25HP, even if they don't block. But thats useless either way, since I can't backtrack to those dark places, so I'm going to end here.
Thanks for playing!
The final fight is unfair on purpose. It spits you out into the Roundabout start, which allows you to go all the way back. I have no idea what am I doing wrong and how to make it more clear. If you still want to finish the game, it's a short segment, so you just have to head left after losing the fight.
Trying to condense interactive parts into the same pages like the med kit is a good advice. I will try to fit things like that in. Elevator needs a panel graphic to make it clear what it's supposed to be.
Was there no background music at all? I did make it quiet to not get in the way of reading, but should still be audible.
Maybe there was later on. There wasn't initially or I didn't hear any, so I jsut started playing some Nausicaa in the background. Ruined the mood probably, but with those creepy enemies, that might've been for the better.
i cant figure out how to used cards
i think this is above my reading level cuz i keep wondering "wtf is all this future shit" and just have to infer that "its just some future shit i guess"
i like reading books and i like more interactive visual novels but this was kinda a weird inbetween for me, iduno i just didnt really feel like having to remember to type certain things or having to get lost trying to find the right page numbers to click on really added much to the experience.
i mean its prolly still hot 10/10 material after liek having it proofread by an english speaker but i don't really know cuz i only got a tiny ways in because autobattle button wont beat the brain egg scrambler and i cant find the button to just walk around him???
Thanks for playing!
I guess I have to reserve some space to fit more exposition about the civilization a bit earlier into the game. Though I still prefer making it inconspicuous and revealing its aspects, math system and symbology through the upcoming conflict.
Walking around brain scrambler is the default action, whether you win or lose. I think I have to make it clear that it's a U-turn and chapter structure is not linear.
-Tell the player about the menu button at the start. "The menu button near your nose" is too cryptic and the little chevron is easy to miss.
-Add the option to have the music loop.
-I don't see an inventory anywhere. If you let go of the mouse button before reading what an item does you're SOL.
-There doesn't seem to be any way to restart the game other than deleting the cookie.
-Backtracking is a nightmare with all the arbitrary one-way paths and jumping back and forth between pages. Needs a map, or at the very least "tight" needs to be colored to stand out better.
-Tooltips for player cards during combat are blurry.
-The brain scrambler is really RNG heavy since you have to use the singular hole card to be able to hurt it at all. I thought it was one of those fights you were meant to lose at first. Can enemies steal the hole card?
-The tooltip for the card you get from the brain scrambler goes outside the edge of the screen.
Some misspellings/typos/grammar mistakes I noticed:
P 54: automata --> automaton
P 55: much hits --> many hits; attacks --> attack(s); stallmate --> stalemate
P 57: missing "an" before "overly"; don't panic --> not panic
P 39: on --> one
P 70: phenomenon --> phenomena
P 72 : Probably the phenomenon has --> The phenomenon has probably
P 67: Missing comma in last sentence.
P 76: a form --> the form
There were some missing articles I noticed earlier, but again, I can't restart the game to double check.
Thanks for the proof reading, that's a lifesaver since I would never notice it on my own. You can restart the game in the menu through Save & Close.
The arbitrary one way path is there for a reason, but I guess I need to add it to the texts. Same goes for the brain scrambler difficulty. Defeating him is not advised, and will make you miss some content. I guess that's why you judged the roundabout path as annoying.
Inventory is out of scope for now. And enemy can steal any card.
I wanted to ask how was your general experience, but after attempting the brain scrambler fight and actually defeating him I get the idea.
Thanks really much! Seeing someone play is really valuable to me.
Now I can see that the game often breaks immersion through UI stuff, like making you think something broke, but there were at most some graphical glitches (god damn it firefox).
And I sure as hell didn't expect someone to call me a great writer. This is my greatest weakness, actually.
Its true you are a good writer! And yes I am a minority with Firefox -- I'd say if it works in Chrome you're fine, that's what the majority of the browser market uses anyway
I know that feel. Both writing and too much reading in games is my bane, on top of being ESL. That's why it really just requires reading bold and italics keywords to get through, and I'm not doing any text based puzzles.
I really like the concept. I used to read those "choose your own adventure books" when I was younger and this is a more interactive version of it. The game doesn't actually say what the controls are like the main menu where you can get stuck after finding the password is AUTHORIZE and not knowing how to put it in. Outside of that, maybe making some pages react to what the player does like opening the door being automatic after the first time doing it.
I thought that the instructions on the page where you actually use it are enough. Did you miss them or were they not clear enough?
Opening the door might not be easy due to book form limitations, but this idea is actually doable and would be a cool interactible cutout.
Really enjoyed the concept. I just beat the brain scrambler, but I'm confused on how to continue. I just end up on page 66 again where I can either go back to the pseudopede or return to the entrance. I'm probably missing something really obvious here and I'll take another look at it later.
Really liked what I played so far. Don't know how you'll develop it further mechanically, but just having the world/story be fleshed out more would be cool by itself
It's a one way path, and since you have found the item, you can use it in places earlier in the game.
Congrats on beating the brain scrambler, though that means you will miss the most interesting gimmick. Just how much hp am I supposed to give this thing?
I think you might change your opinion on saving phrases after you play through all the content (though I would love to just autocomplete them in the UI if I find the middleground). Having option selection could also prevent player from thinking outside the box in the long run and get him stuck in only available options.
Combat readability and tutorial does need lots of work. I pretty much traded slow learning curve for a crash course due to demo restrictions. That's why the first enemy has somewhat equal strength.
I'm glad you like it.
Hey it's the game based on my shitpost. Thanks for the in-game shoutout at the end.
This is pretty cool. Reminds me of the ancient online fad of bite-sized sequential storytelling.
I love the art, in particular the enemy designs.
I can visualize how the password system could be used in all sorts of interesting, less obvious ways. How would you translate that to book format?
I remember I had a book as a kid that came with a special sort of lens that would let you see invisible text, so I guess that could be an idea for a trick up your sleeve if you want.
It would be nice if you could turn the page by dragging it when applicable.
A bookmark feature would be convenient for navigation but I suppose that might get in the way when you want to restrict players from returning to a location.
Thanks for playing and for the idea. In the end it seems you were 100% right judging from general lack of feedback.
I was thinking about some sort of decoding table for the password system. The only conditions it needs to satisfy is obscuring available passwords and be somewhat simple to use.
I would say that teleporting at will is a no-no in a metroidvania, especially when there are gimmicks like the one at the end part (since all of those are separate pages, that would let you escape). I have ideas for fast travel, but the only way to make usual navigating less cumbersome are shortcuts and condensing the content.
Stuff like lenses are of course an option. For example magnifying glass would be used to search for tiny clues, ultraviolet light that was originally supposed to be used for the dark rooms, and either lenses or cards with holes for decoding texts.
Touch screens already have page turning through swipe. I guess it would be a good idea to port it for mouse controls.