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GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/martinwltzko/GameOff-2024---If-Trees-Could-Talk
Game description
Explore a cozy place and explore secrets, maybe leave some. An asynchronous messaging game where players anonymously post thoughts, secrets and stories, creating a voice for the trees.
Theme interpretation
The whole concept consists of the voices from trees and secrets they may hold. Secrets that can be shared anonymously across all players.
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Comments
Definitely bold of a dev to throw a game out to a bunch of strangers to add stuff too. The person who built the letter ramp is amazing. I think some light background sound would have made the game feel less alone and set a tone. Otherwise the movement worked for me the level well designed. I liked the characters clothing but some parts of the rest of face felt a little unfinished. I thought the note posting mechanism was a little unintuitive, I might have preferred right click, left click, enter or tab left click enter for open note post note and finish typing. But at least the way it is now it's hard to spam notes. I also wish I could 'take it back' sometimes I wrote some filler to see if I could post a note somewhere and then wanted to change it but the note was locked in. Overall charming and neat experience I know I'll try to check back at the end of the month to see what people did. You almost never see a jam game with a functioning online component. I think this audience is going to trend to messing around but I think another audience would use this as a really cool 'post secret' kind of thing.
Woah! Wait this concept is awesome! It does have some strange bits and pieces, a few bugs but to be expected with a big project, but the sharing of notes with all other players, that's sick as! I love that idea!
Seeing the giant post it bridge was such a funny experience! This game is very cool, Well done!
PS: Had a weird bug where after going to the menu and then back into the game, i could no longer read notes or open the gate? Also some of the animations were a bit.. long winded? Maybe a skip button? But all in all, a fun experience!
Glad you liked it. For the limited time I could work on it was quite ambitous, you're right. It was also quite a risk as this game lives from user generated content so from you plaing. I'm glad some people found their way here :)
For the animations: Yes their janky, most of them were made one or two days before the deadline, so I had no time to really polish things. Skipping animations is a good idea, although the first animation is used to load the messages in the background. I'll consider it if I decide to polish some last bits, especially the sitting animations should be skippable. Thank you for playing!
It's hard for me to give a review about it. Your ambition is very high, and I think in general you have been very successful. It is a risk to make a game like this, but the creators have already made some great things, including the ramp.
They also have fun easter eggs but go on the swing etc.
The reason why I found it hard was because I had a lot of graphical glitches and I had to restart the game three times before the sensitivity of my mouse was correct.
Keep up the good work. Really creative game you have made.
I'm sorry you witnessed these issues. I don't really know what caused them, though at this scope it could be many things. The sensitivity issue is weird, as I thought the game settings would prodive a robust way for adjustments; I might have to look into this.
That being said, thank you for playing!
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed your game. Great job!
Okay hear me out, this game is a very cool concept. I like the idea of players sharing notes with each other at a place where they are alone but you can view the presense of others. The animations for sitting down and standing up are a bit slow and takes a very long time to finish and I think attention to the feeling of that would really elevate the experience. The animations for the character are... in a game jam state so good enough I would say! I liked when the music kicked in when sitting down and so on so more ambience would really sell the cozy vibe. Very cool game overall and glad to have played it. Thanks!
I feel you, the animations aren't very clean. As I never developed an async game and decided to go third person, I definitely overscoped for a single developer. Adding more ambience (animals, wind, more props) was the top priority on my backlog, unfortunately the deadline came earlier than thought, so I had to cut corners.
I'm glad you enjoyed it and thank YOU for playing!
The Life is Strange inspo is palpable and just like LiS it features such a cool mechanic!
Yeah... you're right. My inspiration was LiS, although - in my opinion - I didn't achieve a dime of what makes this game one of my favourites. I developed the mechanic as a learning experience and to add replayability. Who knows, maybe someone answered your note.
Thank you for playing and adding to the narrative!
I like it, build a ramp to the unbounds and got to my precious bus!
The game is out of my hands now. It's now up to the players to tell stories. Thanks to you, I discovered a critical bug. Thank you for playing!
I used said ramp, it worked
Did you reach my precious bus tho?
I did not :(
:,(
I wasn't able to get the game to work. It says I can't connect to the server when I launch it. Seems like a cool idea though
Sorry to hear this. The server is up running. This could be a firewall issue of some sorts. Glad you gave it a shot, though. Maybe try again later.. if you wish so.