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Rational Thinking's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Game Design | #16 | 2.772 | 3.250 |
| Fun | #29 | 2.025 | 2.375 |
| Overall | #34 | 2.203 | 2.583 |
| Theme | #40 | 1.812 | 2.125 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
The level design was absolutely gorgeous, but the 2D art assets in the 3D space was a bit jarring. The credits sequence also hints at potential horror elements to come but as-is it feels like it could be a 3D slice-of-life SciFi game. I assume that the pacing will be a bit slower to make the horror elements more impactful?
As with some of the other commenters I had some serious FPS issues, particularly with the motion blur effect. That being said, it was playable on an RTX 3060 if just barely.
I’m excited to see where this goes. Horror games aren’t really my jam (pun intended) but what I experience in this demo was good enough that I’d be willing to play this though once it’s finished.
If motion blur is turned on, that is a mistake on our part, I will look at turning that off when we release the fix coming soon for the gameplay stutter! There is a rotation delay on the mouse though, which definitely has been causing problems, and I have since reduced that. Hopefully it will combine to make the game much more enjoyable!
We are also looking at adding some cartoony post-processing, which should help bring the 2D and 3D art together. We are also going to be looking at adding in the days we have ready, as we do have multiple days of story finished, but we just really didn't have time to bring it all together in UE5.
Thanks for giving it a play, and hopefully we will be able to release more of the content soon! We definitely have been a little more relaxed now that the jam is over.
I really like the character designs, as well as the ship design, but the art styles do clash a good bit. Obviously we only had 8 days and finalizing a style and creating art for it just isn't in the time budget, but if you guys are gonna continue with the project, I'd either lean into the cartoon aesthetic of the characters for the environment, or go the other way around and get some nice 3D models cooked up for the characters to match the environment.
If the environment is all original though, it looks great! Performance was a bit rough, but optimizing will come I'm sure.
One tiny thing of note: obviously a lot of games use E for interact. You by no means have to abide by the status quo, but if you're gonna switch it up, a little tooltip when you walk up to your first character would be a nice touch (even if you were to use E this would be nice, imo never let the player assume anything).
It's a nice little prototype though! I wish we could have had a little taste of the dating mechanics, but again I understand there wasn't a whole lot of time. I'm excited to see where the project goes!
So yes, our environment artist did make all of the ship pieces in the jam timeframe! Our plan was to use post-processing to add a colorize and toon filter over the game, but due to the time constraint we have only just recently started working on that. It should be implemented when we release a fix for the stutter soon!
The reason I went with left-mouse for interact is because it is typically what I see being used in indie horror games here on itch, and is a preferred method of mine as it allows for q/e to be used for strafing, or other interactions as well since the game doesn't have any combat. The controls are listed on the game page. In a full game I would like to use context UI similar to what you would see in Zelda, and I may look at implementing that in the fix as well, as I really do think they look nice.
Thank you for the detailed response, and for giving the game a try!
Game ends during the intro unfortunately, you can tell more was planned due to some characters being confined entirely to the background.
There's a few holes between walls, pointless corridors and grammatical errors.
But all of that is why Jams are a thing, review what lessons you've learned, reflect on how you can improve next time and use the experience you've gained to help you grow!
(also anything that can make my rig stutter is impressive)
Yes, we had planned to have multiple days, but unfortunately with the time crunch we had to tease the broken ship (planned for the horror element) with the ending sequence because we just didn't have time to pull it all together. We definitely did learn a lot, and are still working to release a more playable version once we can pin point exactly what is causing the stutter (though we decided to use UE5 just for fun, so it could even just be the engine).
Thanks for giving it a try!
I did notice quite a few grammatical errors; you’ll want to get a proofreader next time. Love the art. Not really a horror game, as far as I can tell? I have no idea what happened.
Absolutely~ We were really on a time crunch, a lot of the errors were added during the quick copying into the game. Agreed though, we had a lot more content lined up, but we simply miscalculated and couldn't fit it in :P We aim to implement it all in post though
Can't really give a rating since my GPU had a heart attack upon opening the game :( But i'd be happy to come back and play once there's a fix for the performance.
I am currently looking into some optimization, and hopefully later when our environment artist is around we can make that happen! Thanks for trying it anyway :D
ok so first of all is it a horror game? no, its a little too short for any horror to be in it. is it fun? no becouse of the incredibly low framerate making it basically unplayable. now what about game design? i can see a good start for a decent game here, not enough gameplay yet to really judge some other factors tho. all in all good job, especially with the main menu animation, well doen!
We definitely were not able to get everything in on time, and it's definitely understandable that you would be let-down by the framerate, there wasn't a whole lot of time for optimization. That being said, I made the UI, so thank you :D
Theme: Couldn't see the horror in this - maybe the slice of gameplay was too short?
Fun: Really nice spritework, but the game was super choppy (low framerate). There was a beginning of a story there, and an oddly placed cooking/crafting mechanic. Overall, can't say much due to the very small portion of story presented.
Game Design: Pretty good layout, if it wasn't for the framerate issues it'd be a solid entry.
Hey, yea we had a multi-day sequence planned where on day 2 everything breaks down (the fly through at the end was a preview), and the cooking mechanic is where the player would manage keeping everyone on the ship fed, or bad things happen... We just didn't have time to implement it all. As well, for the framerate, we just didn't have time to optimize everything as we really did pull off a little more than we could chew... Thank you for giving it a go :)
Looking forward to it after the jam then, I wonder where it will go :D