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Parting Gifts's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Setting, story, characters, and world | #4 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| Blind-friendly and with good use of audio | #21 | 3.273 | 3.273 |
| Fun gameplay | #23 | 2.545 | 2.545 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
This was a lovely, quiet little story. All my critiques have already been said by others, so I just want to add some words of appreciation. Nice work!
I enjoyed listening and playing. It was a quiet break in the morning.
A few times I got stuck in “why doesn’t it continue?” — but others already said that. The music was a nice match. For the voices, it could be an option to record this yourself as audiobook.
In the gameplay I wished for more choices, but I liked it that the choice had such a big effect on the story.
From the plot I felt that the introduction was a bit long — the time to the first choice. This may be due to the digitized voices, though (that are weaker in grabbing and holding attention than real voice actors). The overall length was nice.
And despite that: most of the time the voices actually worked pretty well for me. They spoke better than some youtube-commentary I sometimes run in the background while working.
Since this is a game that needs some quite time, it may be useful to show an estimated play-time, so people can set aside the time for when they play.
I enjoyed the story very much and I think it was the right length for the jam.
Even though having real voices would be very nice, I don't think is a big deal. Most games don't look realistic anyways.
This is a touching game with allot of heart and I appreciate the thought that clearly went into it! For a game jam entry, it is surprisingly well wrapped up too.
I actually really like the theme of this game, and I'd love to see it expanded if possible.
The writing was very good I felt, and is definitely this game's strongest aspect. Worth being proud of!
The use of 11labs AI voices is pretty neat to see, though turning down the stability to make them sound more lifelike would be great.
Some "press enter to continue" prompts are missing, which isn't a huge deal for most players but it's a nice thing for cognitive accessibility, as some people would struggle to remember which key is needed without having to look back at the instructions every time which can be annoying.
The character voices are spread very wide in the stereo field, and bringing them a bit closer together would not only sound more natural IMO, but would also be of some help to people like me with hearing conditions that effect my ability to hear well out of 1 or both ears.
The game mechanics are very simple and have been used in this format many times before, but honestly I'm okay with that for simplicities sake especially for a game jam, and I think it works fine for games where the narrative is primary as well.
Thanks for the great work eileencalub!
Thank you for your kind and constructive feedback, superfreq! Honestly, I teared up after reading it.
In so many ways, I feel like I should have done better, even with this being a game jam entry. I loved writing the story for it. I had a vision of what I wanted to accomplish: a slice-of-life, no combat game focused on how a single book can change someone's life. Making the kind of emotional impact I aimed for was hard to accomplish in a month and with the AI voices. What I ended up with was definitely the Minimum Viable Product, and I was disappointed.
At the same time, I'm super grateful for your suggestions. I've taken notes about adding audio cues and reducing the spread of the voices. I am interested in expanding and improving upon the game. The ideal version would have real human voices, music from indie composers instead of royalty free, and more characters to recommend books to. I'm also playing with the idea of making this a visual novel and aiming for accessibility on both blind/low-vision and deaf/hard-of-hearing fronts.
Your encouragement is so appreciated! Pumped to make more games. :)
I liked the story, but it didn't really feel like a game. There were only 2 times you had to make a choice, 9 times the story pauses and you have to press Return to continue.
I agree with another comment, the voice acting is terrible. This didn't help the experience at all.
I think with some real voice acting instead of AI, more choices and less pauses this could make a nice game.
This isn't the style of game I normally play, but I tried to rate as fairly as possible. The panning of the voices, in my opinion is a bit too wide. Over all, great job.
Thank you for the feedback! As this was my first audio game, I guess I kind of went extreme with the panning and didn't realize it. I appreciate you pointing it out!
Thank you for the feedback! This was my first audio game and I appreciate your honesty. My aim was to get real voice actors, but because of no budget I had to use AI voices, so unfortunately they did fall flat. Great point about adding a sound to signal the player should press Enter!