Play story
Delve's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.600 | 4.600 |
| Audio | #1 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Visuals | #3 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Theme | #23 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
One of the more interesting submissions to the jam, for sure. Considering that in reality job interviews ride the line between awfully stressful and hideous dull, making a game based around that concept that can keep the players attention was always going to be a difficult undertaking.
It took a little while to catch on that I was losing willpower as I was progressing. Perhaps that was the point. I did find a bit difficult to determine what exactly was causing it to drop - either resisting, going along or simply being a part of it.
I got up the eighth area, the mirror maze, before my rebellious, virtuous, repressed 68-year-old CHUMBA (he lost a year in cards) could not seem to progress past their fear of COOTIES. I did actually find a different mirror, containing the wish, but that didn't help me clear the area. I expect I was meant to go back and scrounge up some willpower from the previous areas? Instead, my man CHUMBA went back to the mirror repeatedly to stack 205 WILL like a boss. Hilariously, the wish in the mirror was OMNIPOTENCE.
I'm not sure blocking progress is the way to go here. My main drive to continue playing was the curiosity to see what the next area would be and after a while of clicking about the mirror room this started to dry up. The desire to go back to previous areas was pretty much zero, I felt I had seen enough. I was close to giving up before realising I could abuse the mirror for easy WILL.
I finished the game after that, granted something like Corporate Responsibility Manager, which I found hilarious. Very Terry Pratchett. I was a bit disappointed I couldn't refuse, especially with my extremely high WILL, though its not like I earned it :P.
Music was pretty good, though the occasional track began to grate just because the loops were so short.
I'm going to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of AI art in general. But its better than nothing, certainly better than just grabbing stock assets and you clearly stated you were using it, even lampshading its absurdity throughout the game. I doesn't even look too bad, though Mr Beelzebub's fingers did stick out like, well, a sore thumb.
All in all, well done. Could see a lot of effort went into it.
Thanks for the feedback!
The willpower mostly drops passively through interactions with Bob (because I hate job interviews) and there are some binary options where it drops if you go with the flow, while rebellion rises if you object.
I think you're the first virtuous playtester I've seen! Most people seemed to go towards the evil route. Definitely not the first 68-70 year old tho ;) It sounds like the ability to customize a bit made things a little more fun.
The mirror maze was intended as a bit of a "final boss" but I do think it could be improved into something more exciting. The levels have different content when you revisit them (like the diner lets you cook food for willpower), but I think the maze itself kinda discourages you from leaving since you'll forget the pattern or lose your spot (hence adding in the secret rooms last minute to make it easy to beat your fear, though I should probably add a check for revisiting to stack :P). I need to do something more engaging and climatic with this level and will mull over what to do. Your feedback is really helpful here - I was on the fence about it myself and it's useful to hear that it leeched interest in continuing.
I'm glad you liked the ending title :D I was going for something mundane (hell is in the details) but due to time limits couldn't write different narratives for multiple endings. I definitely want to revisit that and maybe give a willpower check for turning Bob down. That feels like it would be a more impactful final use of willpower versus the check at the final mirror.
Re the AI art, I wanted to try out learning how it works and figured leaning into it and highlighting the weirdness is the way to go. The hands, as always, are a pitfall :P
Thanks for giving it such a thorough playthrough and doing such a helpful writeup!
What a fantastic take on Dante's Inferno! This was a ton of fun to play through - I really like how individual actions had consequences, or were referred to later down the line. The music fit the mood very well, and using Stable Diffusion was a good choice to get the uncomfortable, otherworldly feel just right. The evolution of Bob and the twist of the gameshow were both a fantastic touch. Got four achievements on my first playthrough as a 1,345 year old named Snork (who was horribly bad at gambling), and intend to go back and get the rest later.
My only feedback is that a few of the UI features could be improved upon slightly. One example I have in my head is during the Gluttony segment, when you're cooking, I kept clicking on the dish to prepare, and was waiting for a popup to select the prep method, completely forgetting it was populated below the food items. Nothing that detracted too strongly - just small things.
Other than that, an excellent entry to this spooky jam!
Thank you for the great feedback! There's some bug making people age a ton that I haven't pinpointed yet, but I kinda don't mind THAT much since it's a weird surreal world. The cooking segment I definitely want to improve. I ended up making it fairly quickly after I got bogged down trying to make more complex mechanics and the UI there is one of the clunkier parts. Overall, I want to clean up the UI some more. CSS is flexible, but it can be pretty finnicky sometimes, so it definitely ended up a bit eh in parts :P
Again, thanks for the feedback!
I really enjoyed this game! The visual style, dialogue options, and narration are well done. Work to be done to improve the game, in my opinion, tutorial, UI & sounds :)
Overall concept is clear and well made. A good game for all fans of the genre
Thank you for the feedback! Regarding sounds, were you able to hear the music? There seems to be a bug with the itch desktop app which doesn't play the audio, so I've removed download as an option. If you run the game in the browser, you can listen to the different music tracks directly from the main menu with the "music" button without having to play the game again.
Do you have any specific feedback about the UI and what browser/screen size did you use to play? I spent a lot of time focusing on making it responsive to a range of sizes, but CSS can be a pretty funky sometimes. The dating game responses are definitely one aspect I want to fix in the future which I struggled with.
Thanks again for your feedback!
Great game! The visual style, dialogue choices, & narrative is really well done. I really liked the diner section of the game. The inclusion of sound would greatly enhance this game.
Thank you for the comment!
There is sound! Was your browser muted, maybe? You can listen to the songs for each level through the "music" button from the main menu/settings link (so you don't have to replay, if you wanted to check out the sound on its own).
I was playing in the Itch.io Desktop Application. The sound isn't work on there, but I just checked it in another browser and the I hear the sound now.
Thanks for reporting that issue, I'll look into it!