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So a Detective Walks Into a Bar...'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #24 | 2.722 | 3.333 |
| Concept | #24 | 2.994 | 3.667 |
| Use of the Limitation | #30 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Presentation | #31 | 2.586 | 3.167 |
| Overall | #32 | 2.688 | 3.292 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
2
Software used
Unity, FL Studio
Use of the limitation
We wanted to incorproate it by allowing the player to only go through the dialogue with NPCs once, but were unable to add that feature in time.
Cookies eaten
1
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Comments
(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)
"You play as a detective trying to solve a murder. Talk to the bar patrons and see what kind of leads you can pick up." -> reminds me of the beginning of "Indigo Prophecy"
"After you've gathered all the information you can, enter your guesses into your journal about who you think did it, why they did it, and how!" -> Reminds me of "Return of the Obra Dinn", and "Unusual Investigator" from this very game jam!
Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled.
bug speaking with black-eyed bartender: after choice, shows my face, and mine again for the answer. Actually, trying again, I realize the portraits are inverted throughout!
the cat is cute and having him as someone you can interrogate is tripping XD
Not spoiling, but the form suggestions for solving the case are sometimes a bit of a giveaway. Of course, a "Return of the Obra Dinn" system for answering would have probably been way too complex. XD
I thought I had nailed the case, but apparently not… ._.
Only now do I realize you can jump with Space, although this does not seem really useful. X)
Aaaaah, speaking to some character AFTER having some information can change the dialogue!!! :O I had thought so way earlier, in my first run, but seeing in the second run that the redhead client was still asked about the gun, I thought incorrectly that everything was static! Spoiler: realizing while talking to the bartender after the woman.
BUT the flow of information is not always coherent! Spoiler: I can ask the bartender about what the cook supposedly told me, but I did not speak to the cook.
I have tried several possibilities that seemed to match my information, but the case remains unsolved!!! ._. Is there a bug, or did I really mess up?? X)
Takeaway: I like the Cluedo approach! And how you wanted the player to focus (this is still true through the timer! Even though you could not make the dialogue trigger only one time), and have him play again for information; this idea is rather close to "Outer Wilds", actually. There are some bugs and interface problems, but nothing too serious, I got how to play quickly! :) I wonder if I messed up or if there is a problem for the winning condition, but anyway, I thought the dialogue and clues were subtle enough.
Very interesting concept and prototype, do enhance it! :) (And tell me the solution! :o XD)
so much to read and not enough time to do so got all of it on my 2nd play through was not expecting it at first so was reading at a normal slow pace. Liked the narrative good job.
It seems that i am not attentive enough to find out who the murderer is. I have been led to the bloody knives, and i thought that would open up more dialog with the cook, but seems this it is a kind of red herring. Maybe?
Although i have to confess that the timer forces me to pass the text too fast and maybe i miss some important clue. In my first playthrough, not noticing the time limit, i could not even talk to the third witness before the game asked for my conclusions. Then i realized the counter on the top-right corner, but i do not know how many times it has to count down before time runs out; guess that it only shows the timer’s seconds.
The dialog interface is a bit weird. When speaking to the cook, the first portrait shown is that of the cook, which would seem to indicate that it is him talking, but the text is a description coming from the detective, isn’t it? It also happens with the cat, but not the others. Also, when the dialog is over it still shows the box with the prompt “press f to continue” and no matter how many times i press f (i did it many times the first time before trying to move the player—i’m not very smart).
Finally, maybe not a problem in a jam, but i believe that distributing a game in a RAR archive for Windows is not ideal, since the File Explorer cannot extract them and i had to download unrar to play.
My! I am a bit too negative, aren’t I?
It is only the things that i think would make this entry even better than it already is. The concept is good, the graphics well done, and the dialog very well written. My guess is that the issues i described above are only a result from the short time window of the jam, and that given a day more it would have been almost perfect.
Good job!
Altough the game did had some bugs and wasnt that polished as it was made in a short time so it had some bugs
but i am glad you enjoyed playing it! :D
O, ths is good concept! Beatifull art!
Yes, I agree with the fact that the timer here is made poorly, for example, it was possible to give more time because people who read slowly will simply not have time. It is well done that you need to think before you make the final version
Thank you!! So sorry for the slow readers, we really don't have time to test the timer. I'm thinking about adding two difficulties may be a good way to solve this problem.
I played this with my teammate and we really enjoyed it! We thought it was a very good concept, and the writing was amazing! However, it could use some more polish, but I understand it's a jam game - some times it be like that. For example, the timer only having the seconds and not the minutes shown really confused me, because once it ran out the first time I assumed it was a debugging feature and that we weren't on a time limit.
Another piece of critique: again, we both love the concept, but I feel like having a timer on a dialogue-based game is a bit unfair, since it punishes slower readers. Maybe you could have the timer pause when there's text on screen?
Thank you so much! In fact, we originally set the timer to encourage player to replay the game, but in the 72h limit we really don't have enough time to test it.
Oh that's clever, I could totally see that working! Half of the games I've worked on had to be submitted after the jam so I certainly understand your plight haha.