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The Last Archiver's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #2 | 4.636 | 4.636 |
| Innovation | #5 | 3.955 | 3.955 |
| Ambience | #9 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| Overall | #10 | 3.691 | 3.691 |
| Gameplay | #21 | 3.182 | 3.182 |
| References | #36 | 2.591 | 2.591 |
Ranked from 22 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 pretty cool and unique puzzle experience! I liked the ominous atmosphere and spritework.
It took me quite a while to figure out how this game worked and I think the main issues have been addressed by the others already (how it should show the specific prophecy first so you know which tech tree to aim for, the graph being a little difficult to read in-game, and how the game's a little hard to understand at first).
But it was pretty cool to figure out the game out by the end and it did take me quite a few tries. It was also kinda funny trying to aim for the one specific technology that I needed according to the prophecy, and seeing the silly humans completely aim for the other tech trees instead in the previous runs
Overall very cool game.
Using graph provided in game description, it seems if you're really unlucky with humanity learning technologies you're not able to win. Which is really unique and cool take on it.
It allows player to make plans according to rng. And if there were multiple technologies for specific prophecy, it would be fun to change plans accordingly.
I think there should be another button where player could manually save technologies to refer for another run. Especially if you plan to add way more options.
Also I think you should force player to read the prophecy before allowing to give technologies to humans.
The Idea is really Interesting but im not really understanding how this Game actually works. I didn't even notice you can click on the Scroll on the bottom right corner until a few runs later. And even that Scroll i didn't understand the Graph on it at all. A little Tutorial of how the things work would maybe help but I dont know if that would make some mechanics of figuring out the right knowledge a bit too easy.
I noticed too that the scroll was a bit blending with the background but I thought the text next to it, would make people notice it. The graph is also something I wanted to improve on but I failed to figure out how to manually arrange the nodes within the editor, so I just auto arranged it. It didn't look as clean as my local one.
But now that I think about it, I could have just taken a screenshot and covered the text with a rectangle. Modern problems require modern solutions.
I really wanted to understand how this game works since it FEELS like it could be a very unique puzzle game. And unique puzzle ideas are kind of hard to come by. But I really had a hard time figuring out the mechanics of the game.
I think just a few more hints somewhere could help a lot and help me engage with the mechanics.
On the other hand, the presentation of the game is really well done. The little intro dialogue, the sprites, and even the itch page itself added a lot of production value to the game which added a lot of "weight" to the puzzles.
The tablet you can interact with is cool, but I wished it provided a bit more explanation regarding how the game worked. I feel like there is a lot of opportunity to even give tutorials or hints in a way that still feels mysterious and fit with the vibe you have going on. It would be satisfying to figure out as well!
Thanks for the feedback! I know the game could need more explanations but wasn't sure how to best explain it. I don't like adding a lot of text to explain stuff since I'm also not the type to read that. In the end I didn't have time to figure it out and spend a lot of time creating those sprites..
I understand... my game also suffers from a lack of text to explain things.
I find that in my experience, text that is forced upon the player tends to be skipped. I while back I worked on a game before where there was a text box that says "do X", a playtester skipped it, and then immediately asked me "I want to do X, but I can't figure out how to do it".
But when there is text that players can open at anytime, or players seek out, I think they're much more willing to read it since they reached it voluntarily. So maybe the tablet could be a way to show info?
I can tell you worked a lot on the sprites though, the production value of the UI elements and presentation shows.
An interesting idea, and I love the aesthetics and writing, but I'm really not sure how the gameplay is meant to work. From what I gather: the game page says that humanity is more likely to discover things leading up to the knowledge that you gave them. I specifically recall cases where there were several undiscovered things in the tree before the knowledge I gave, but humanity still learned nothing in that decade. Is it based on chance? I managed to win on my 3rd try but I really didn't feel like I did anything better in order to get said win
For what it's worth I still appreciate what you were going for, since it's a pretty unique gameplay idea. Everything else about the game is great, I just found it really confusing to play
Yeah, I could've probably improved the gameplay to add more depth. It's currently based on chance since I didn't want to make it too easy, but maybe I should have increase the chance, so it doesn't feel like humanity is too stupid :)
Very cool concept!
It took me a while to understand how to choose the proper knowledge to give humanity. Lost 4 times but finally beat one of the prophecies on my 5th try.
The sprites are very nicely done too.I'd suggest making it a requirement to read the prophecy first before letting the player choose books or give knowledge. A simple message on the screen saying "The prophecy... I should read it" and making the prophecy slab glow or something like that should work.
Good work!
Interesting concept! I enjoy the spritework. But I'm not quite sure how to finish it, especially with humanity's tendency to be unhelpful in doing their own research
You need to have the right knowledge for the prophecy at the end, so you have to focus on getting one branch in the tree. Maybe that wasn't so clear after all. And Humanity should be more likely going toward knowledge that you give them.
I really like the ambiance & style! I really struggled to understand what exactly the rules of the puzzle is. Didn't know why sometimes I got multiple other themes or how to succeed exactly.
If with themes you mean the prophecies, then that was on purpose to make it more interesting. For each prophecy you need one specific final knowledge to win the game. Make I should more clearly describe it..