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Night Feeding - InkJam 2023's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #12 | 3.450 | 3.571 |
| Originality | #19 | 3.243 | 3.357 |
| Narration | #19 | 3.243 | 3.357 |
| Theme | #25 | 2.415 | 2.500 |
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
strong sense of mood with the 2d lighting setup - really made the most of the visuals. i had a few issues where i'd get blocked by my bait and be constantly picking it up and dropping it, eventually leading to a game over. also, part of me feels like you may have been able to keep the player in control at all times and done all narration through the cool notes system? but i'm not sure.
Hey!
Thanks! And yes, I think that might have been possible, but I didn't have time to figure out how I'd handle the 'choices' menu if you go too far from the interactable object. I'll need to have a think - I'm sure it's totally possible. Just needs some UX design.
I've got a post-jam version cooking where the bait is properly picked up and placed in the player's arms, so there's no more risk of getting stuck with it up your bum, but that's a bit too big of a fix for me to add right now with a good conscience. My best suggestion for bait right now is to simply be aware of how silly its attachment is and try to work around it. Anyway for the most part bait isn't even necessary (aside from finishing the game, of course).
Thanks for playing!
The lighting effects were well done and added to the atmosphere. I like how the notes are displayed on the screen but you could keep playing. The story being built through context clues was nice. I was a little curious about the man in the cap, I feel his story wasn’t resolved, but maybe I missed a handful of notes.
I did find a bug. If you access the breaker from the outside, it will let you fix it, but the game will not let you read other notes or interact with anything. I just had to refresh the game. Also, I didn’t really see the jam theme much in this.
SPOILER WARNING Is there a different ending if you feed the brother in his room? When I made the special bait, he was already in that room, so I just fed him there haha.
Overall, great job!
Thanks! Not sure what you mean with accessing the breaker from outside...wait...could you get outside the house? :D because that's not intended, lol (at least not presently, that could be fun though).
As to the man in the cap, he was -supposed- to be there for the ending, which was indeed supposed to have to do with whether or not you fed your brother in his room or not. Basically after the end, there'd be a cutscene where a survivor (the man in the cap) breaks in. If you fed the brother in his room, then the man in the cap doesn't find him, and you just have a conversation with the survivor. Otherwise the survivor will see your brother and shoot him ("bad" ending? or "good"? who knows). Anyway, I obviously didn't have time for such an elaborate ending cutscene, but that had been the plan :D
Hotline Hill? Silent Miami? :-) This felt like two of my favourite games mashed together. I really like the domestic horror approach, and of course themes of isolation and infection are now all too relatable. My favourite touch was letting you move while the notes are displayed on-screen. Like audiologs that keep playing as you explore, it really helps maintain the sense of tension and atmosphere.
Honestly as is often the case when one lacks an artist, I simply browsed OpenGameArt for some sprites until I found what I found and then mashed things together, which in this case meant a top-down game :D I realized also as I was writing that "ah yes, lockdown, isolation, infection, vaccines" came pretty naturally. So it goes. The notes probably would have been audiologs, had I had the budget (so to speak) to record them :D
Thank you for playing!
These types of games always freak me out so I'm sorry to say I couldn't finish it all, but I got halfway on the notes. That was pretty spooky, the Darkwood inspiration feels pretty clear here. Having the narrative split across the various notes forces you to get out of your comfort zone to find out what's going on. I was always worried about something coming up behind me. The only thing that messed me up while playing is that I didn't catch on to the fact that you drop the bait whenever you interact with things- I kept thinking "Wow, why the heck do these people have bait under all these notes?" But yeah overall, it's very spoopy and a pretty well-thought-out of spreading the narrative across the entire game. Good job!
Edit: I only remembered this after the fact, but if you want to freak people out a bit more, a blinking mechanic that makes your screen go black every so often would really mess with people. ;)
The bait mechanic got bugged out when I edited some other things (to do with rotations and whatnot, ugh :D) - the original mechanic was that you always carry the bait in front of you, so you'd always be aware that you've picked it up. Currently it (buggily) attaches to one side of you and then just stays there, so there's a good chance you forget you're even carrying it.
I could definitely add a few more spooky-spookspook mechanics to the game, like heartbeat sounds or screen effects when the brother is close etc. And why not black the whole screen now and again for added fun :D
Thank you for playing!
Aaahhh. Maybe a tiny light that shines over the character might also help people remember. So you can see your model and what you're carrying. I dunno, you know best for your own game, so good luck!
In the post-jam version there's a carrying animation, the player slows down, and the bait sack is always placed in front of the player, so there's less risk of forgetting :D
I beat the game, despite being bad at horror games. The ambience is really good. The audio design and lighting work very well together. The fact that the game still progressed during narration is very anxiety-provoking; the brother crept into my vision while I was still stuck adding ingredients to the bait, which really freaked me out, but I was able to exit the dialogue and run away in time. It's nice to see Ink being used to compliment a more gameplay-ish game; haven't seen much of that this jam, but it really is one of the great things about it as a tool.
Fun fact - your brother is actually supposed to stop when you're doing the proper "zoom in, look at things" parts of the narration, but due to some unforeseen bug he clearly doesn't :D So technically that's an added bit of extra stress that wasn't originally intended, hehe. But it does cause extra tension, so hooray!
And yeah, Ink is great for gameplay-ish things as well! After all, all it does is provide a great way of spitting out text. HOW that text is then used in the game is up to the rest of the code. Thanks!
Everything's working together to give a sense of creepiness - the growls/groans, the grey rooms with splashes of red, the little notes you find. Interracting with some objects becomes nervewracking when you know your brother's closeby and you can't flee in that moment. I really liked the lightning that'd illuminate the surroundings in a different colour. I lost the textbox at some point so couldn't keep going as it was no longer popping up when interracting. Neat spooky game!
Thanks! I think I figured out the reason for the bugginess (you can interact with notes multiple times, meaning you get a count of over 14 notes, which then...breaks the game, oops). But! Thank you! I actually had the lightning be more dramatic initially, but it turns out Unity WebGL does NOT like having more than 1 or 2 point lights active at once it turns out :D
ah ok that's why! Well nice work regardless.
I couldn't inspect things anymore after finding the pills in the bathtub so I stopped playing, but the part I did try were really fun! I was genuinely scared at some points! I'll definitely come back to give the game another try later.
How odd :O I just tried and couldn't get it to break, but I'm sure it's totally possible. There's also a funny bug where if you pick up a sack of bait it doesn't stick to your 'front' any more, but in whatever direction it was when you picked it up. Oh well. Thanks!