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Solace: Memories of the Lost's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Setting, story, characters, and world | #15 | 3.306 | 3.643 |
Fun gameplay | #24 | 2.204 | 2.429 |
Blind-friendly and good use of audio | #25 | 1.491 | 1.643 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I really liked the concept and the atmosphere! The story was very touching and sad at moments. But, the dialogue often ruined the mood for me, especially the childish insults and arguments between Dr. Charon and Hades. It's possible for a story to mix humor with seriousness, but it requires more subtlety and care.
If you plan to keep working on the game, I think the biggest area to focus on is accessibility. Like other people reported, neither the browser version nor the Windows version worked with NVDA, so many blind players would not be able to enjoy the game. I did not get a chance to test with JAWS, and I did not test the ping feature, so I can't comment on those.
The second thing I'd work on is adding more complexity and variety to the quests. Right now they all feel the same, everything is waiting for you in the garden every time, and you don't even need to remember or think about which ingredients to use. Maybe you need to go to the forest to find some ingredients, or solve a puzzle or trade with someone to learn a recipe, or experiment to find the right combination of ingredients, or have Cooking Mama-style minigames for brewing the potions.
This game concept has a lot of potential, and with some more work it could be a really interesting and heartfelt game!
Thank you for providing such thoughtful feedback! I agree that the quests could have been more complex! While we ran out of time, I think as the team's producer, I could have recommended decreasing it to 2 recipes that were more complex instead of 3 similar ones. I mentioned this is another comment, but I definitely need to research more about JAWS vs. NVDA. We'll definitely continue learning and use all the feedback to create more accessible games!
Sadly this won't work with NVDA or Narrator, but if you have JAWS, or at least the demo version of JAWS, it works with that, up until you get to the parts using the inventory at least, including the cauldron, unfortunately, which is why I couldn't get past the first quest.
Navigation is difficult because moving doesn't pan the sounds that environmental landmarks make, meaning that you don't have a good idea of your location in comparison to other objects in the room. Also, there is no wall bump sound, so it can be hard to tell when you are at the edge of a map, and important interactables like doors and items don't seem to make any noise.
The accessible indicator with V didn't really pan enough to give a good direction, and partly this is do to the small size of the maps I think. It also didn't use the lower pitch to indicate when the objective was behind the player, so I couldn't really tell what direction it was easily. The volume did go down based on distance though, so that was good.
You can't repeat the last spoken message if you missed it, and you can't check your current objective again.
The tutorial doesn't show the keys in a list, so if you can't remember it all at once, you are kind of out of luck. It also doesn't include the speech keys like T and R.
The theme is really cool, and I like the general atmosphere.
The music is excellent and the sounds are high quality.
The dialogue seemed a bit stilted, with too much repetition, but still connected me to the characters.
The ability to stop speech was a nice touch.
Thank you so much for the great feedback!! This was all our first time participating in this jam and creating a game focused on blind gamers, so every piece of your feedback is extremely valuable. The point about having sounds indicating walls, doors, and items, completely makes sense and these types of changes will definitely be in future games. I can't speak for the whole team, but I definitely need to research more about JAWS vs. NVDA for the next jam. Thank you again! Excited to create even better and more accessible games moving forward!
Great response, thanks!
IMO you guys should be proud of what you accomplished in this jam, regardless of the final product. As someone who's helped with jam games my self, I know what it's like on both sides of the Equation. Getting a top spot in the ratings feels awesome, but you learn allot either way. All the sub goals that were completed still teach you valuable skills, and the information you gather from feedback about things that didn't work well can help you pinpoint what you need to learn more about for the next time.
As for the NVDA and JAWS thing, definitely join the jam discord and we'll be happy to help. There are some experienced blind coders in there.