I really enjoyed the puzzle here. Very nice submission.

Good work. Thanks for participating!

P.S.: Please let me know if this game is to be continued.

Pretty artstyle and clean writing (minus the occasional grammar error). Puzzle was kind of fun though I forgot I could rotate pieces at first. Second riddle was a little unclear, I went through literally every choice but the right one :p. Good work!

CopyKat is a really short game concept about a mystery surrounding a girl who one day wakes up in a magical but monochromatic world that tells her story as the player progresses through puzzles and magical mirrors.

Magical Girl Concept:

The game doesn't feature a magical girl although the main character, Katherine, seem to dress like one. However there are elements of magic present in the world instead with talking mirrors and gates. Katherine doesn't exhibit any magical powers or transformation but being able to talk to inanimate object could be a magical trait that have yet to show up in the game.

Mechanics:

The movement control is similar to RPGMaker, arrow keys for move direction, while the interact button is located on the A key instead of the Z key. I find that there might be a bit of a confusion with the interact button and the progress dialog button (Space or Enter key) because its a little strange to have the two separated since the Interact button is normally a button that confirms the player action whether it be confirm the dialog progress or confirm interacting with objects in the environment. On many occasion I was pressing the A key to progress the dialog while not realizing I was repeating the first line dialog and later found that the Space key forwards the next dialog. The game has a simple dialog and options/choice interface which is decent for its use. I would recommend a bit more development into it since the dialog doesn't allow players to reverse to a previous dialog line especially when trying to figure out the answer to the riddle mini game. Another solution would be to line the riddle in the last dialog before the choice prompt or have the full riddle display in a separate dialog box. Besides that, there is a jigsaw puzzle mini game where the player have to assemble pieces of a broken mirror to progress the story. The mechanics behind is decently implemented but more could have been done to have the pieces line up perfectly, not have the mouse drag multiple pieces at a time, and the rotation sometimes do skip a few angles. I am not too sure how Godot handles mouse events and UI layout but it would be good to explore other ways or solution in creating the same mini game.

Visual:

I really like the art style the developer have decided on and it does create this fantasy and mystical air that enhances the story behind it. At the same time, the decision to utilize monotonous colors is a good choice in this type of genre when the story is oriented towards mystery. The cute and simple walk animation on the player character makes her appealing to watch and it enhances the gameplay by a ton. Although the background art is limited, it is designed with sufficient intend to tell what is needed in the current story itself. The title screen is designed really well as it immediately tells the player that the game tells a story of what might have happen to Katherine. Good effort has been put into creating the art assets for the game and I think there would be a lot more required when the game gets further developed.

UI:

The game has a title screen that has the essential buttons laid out in a neat orderly fashion and not overlapping with the title screen art. The options button allows players to adjust the music and sound effects volume. There seems to be no in-game menu or ways to return back to the main menu from within the game. The dialog and choice prompt UI is simple and practical for its use.

Audio:

The dreamy and magical fantasy music is really good as it is composed to matches well with each of the scenes in mind. The slow and dreamy title screen music gives it a really inviting vibe to start the game while the music for the two levels has a magical fantasy feel to it, giving a feeling of a magical environment.

Theme:

The developer picked three themes which are Schrödinger's Cat, Time Dilation, and Uncertainty. However I think three is a little too many since the game isn't too complete at this point to know if the theme is actually utilized in the game. It is described that Katherine is trapped in a box, but its not shown in the game or story that she is actually trapped (the bedroom doesn't even have solid walls (⊙_⊙)!). It might be an intention for the story to be developed towards that idea but its not currently implemented yet. The time dilation isn't apparent in the game since there is no indication of time flowing or mention of how the real world and mirror world are moving at different time scales. The theme that would definitely match is the level of uncertainty present in the story where the girl wakes up not knowing anything where she is and no memory of what happen (Spoiler: she mentions having no memory). I think if the developer could write the story with regards to the uncertainty theme in mind then the shroud of mystery and tension surrounding the girl would be an engaging point.

Challenge / Engagement:

The game offers jigsaw puzzle and riddles as a medium of challenge. Its not too challenging considering the puzzles are familiar but the riddles can be a little challenging when the riddle isn't very clear or obvious at first which requires several readings. The story is engaging as the player is given clues when answering the riddles on the gate, possibly clues of what is to come further down the road and adding fuel to the mystery behind it.

Originality / Creativity:

The art, music, and story is quite original in its own way and there is a good level of creativity when the riddles are used with possible an intent to reveal part of the main character backstory.

Story:

The story is well written with few minor issues. The writing direction seems skewed towards the mystery side and its hard to imagine what will come next since the main character backstory is pretty much shrouded in mystery (even though its was described in the "How does your game fit the theme(s)?"). I think the current direction is a good choice since its still in the early stages of a story structure but a few unexpected turn should occur along the way and how that is told will be the important factor in any story laden game.

Overall:

The basic concept and idea about a girl waking up to a mystery is a solid idea while taking into account of the visuals and base mechanics implemented, there is good potential in developing the game further. Story wise, I would say it has a good start but how it unfolds will be the key factor on how it can get players to be engaged further.

Side note: I notice for a 2D Godot game it takes a very long time to load each part of the game.

Can't really say much about the story because it's too short, but I really like the dreamy atmosphere (I can easily fall asleep to the music or leave it on loop for hours).  The only issue I had was with the puzzle, the pieces were hard to see and hurt my eyes the color of the puzzle pieces was too similar to the background. I think having more contrast or an outline would easily fix that. Overall the game feels comfy.

Thoughts recorded during my playthrough

+ = I liked it

- = I didn't like it

* = Comment/neutral

====================

+ Nice title screen, simple, practical, beautiful picture

+ Music & sound effects are nice, too.

- Not sure why this game is launching in debug mode? There's a console window showing various warnings & errors. Closing the console closes the game. The game is playing fine, though (at least when I leave the console window alone).

+ Lovely character sprite!

- Perspective is a little weird. Bed is practically a birds-eye view, but the rest of the game is 3/4 view.

- Walk speed is too fast. Would be better suited for a run speed.

- Collision is weird. If I walk into an object and try to keep walking, the next move will cause the character to be "teleported" a short distance from her current location, rather than smoothly moving. Kinda hard to describe in text, but try moving past an object, then walk the other way to see what I mean.

- I can walk outside the bounds of the screen.

- Kinda weird that "interact" is separate from "advance text." Pressing the interact key resets the dialog.

+ Katherine's bust art is crisp and expressive. Awesome!

- Not loving the story, though. Katherine seems to be a little too ignorant of everything.

- The background interferes with seeing the choices. I recommend adding an opaque background to this choice menu.

- Woah, a "game over" for answering the question incorrectly? That's harsh.

+ At least I start right back at that point.

* I feel like one of the answers to the question was equally valid, but I'll let it slide.

- I have noticed that you don't use apostrophes in your text. Why?

- It takes pressing buttons twice to perform actions (such as interact with elements or advance text). Minor gripe, but it's a little weird.

* I think I understand why the interact and advance text commands are separate keys...it allows you to restart the dialog to see the questions again. It works, but I'm not a fan of it.

- Ugh...If I answer the second question wrong, it takes me back to the first question. I already know the answer to the first question, so this only serves to waste my time.

- The puzzle mirror is not winning me over, either.

• There is a piece at the bottom covering the bottom edge of the mirror. Really uncomfortable to look at and makes figuring out what goes there difficult
• Some pieces overlap with each other, making it so when I click one piece, I also interact with the other piece.
• Puzzle pieces snap back to their original position, so I can't try to remedy the above issues myself.
• I understand that these pieces aren't supposed to fit in a traditional rectangular formation, but the odd shapes are rubbing me wrong.
• The pieces don't sit flush even when they're in the right place, which just looks odd.
• Why can I rotate pieces to diagonal angles? It just adds extra steps to getting the pieces into correct position.

Summary

Hats off to the character artist, because Katherine looks gorgeous! Her walk sprite is crystal-clear and detailed, her bust art is expressive, and she's otherwise just a delight to look at! Sound design was pretty good, too. The story and puzzles, however, did not leave a good impression on me. As someone who has designed a few puzzles for similar games, I can appreciate the challenge in making a puzzle that is neither too frustrating nor too easy, but this was not the way to go. Please reconsider how you are presenting this story and maybe even make some different puzzles for the gates. For example, maybe refine the puzzle piece mechanics and have each gate be a different puzzle. Alternately, if you really want to stick with the riddles, how about eliminating the answer that was chosen from the list? Regardless of what you decide, just know that I don't think you should proceed with the game with the way it's currently presented.

Side note: Have you considered using RPG Maker instead of Godot? I know that Godot is free, but it seems like part of the issue here is that you are spending time creating the technical structure to get the game working in the first place. If you went with RPG Maker, you would be able to advance past all that and focus more on the game's design and story. There's a free trial on the official site if you want to see what I mean without spending the money.

Whatever you decide, good luck to you and this game's continued development!

good game, though the puzzle pieces retracing back to their original positions made the puzzle a little harder, maybe if the pieces can be placed anywhere outside the mirror so they can be stored for use later rather then getting in the way, but a fun little quick game none the less.

This is a really nice start! Love all the character art... the titlescreen, sprites and portraits all look great. She's got a nice design too. Music fits very well, I like the dreamy atmosphere it gives.

The story seems like it has a lot of potential, though the demo is a little too short for me to give a strong opinion. But so far so good! The description is certainly intriguing. I'll have to check back when it's finished!

I think weckar already mentioned the puzzle... the piece overlapping the mirror on the bottom was a little annoying, but not a deal breaker. One small visual bug I noticed is that if you started a dialogue while walking, the sprite would keep playing the walking animation. (At least on the quizzes, I didn't go out of my way to see if this happened elsewhere)

Looking forward to the finished game!

Finished the demo. Ran into some strange things, like a jigsaw piece that was overlapping the mirror from the start and wouldn't be moved, as well as sometimes picking up several pieces at once.

Being sent back to the start after getting the second riddle wrong was also a tad frustrating.

Spacebar also seemed to be an undocumented control to advance text. I kept hitting A when talking to the hand mirror, and thought I'd gotten stuck in a dialogue loop. Turns out I was just restarting the dialogue every time until I randomly tried to hit Space.

For what it's worth: Audio worked fine in the web version.