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Observer's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #6 | 4.563 | 4.563 |
| Concept | #9 | 4.063 | 4.063 |
| Enjoyment | #13 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Overall | #17 | 3.703 | 3.703 |
| Use of the Limitation | #46 | 2.688 | 2.688 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
Lucas Zilke - Sam Boyd
Software used
Unreal Engine
Use of the limitation
Narrative / Gameplay
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Comments
Really amazed at the amount of work you've done. The camera gameplay mechanic is a nice touch - for some reason, it reminds me of a blend between "Life is Strange", "Beyond Good & Evil" and "Fatal Frame". The ambience really hits home with the quiet, creepy silent town that leaves a bit of tension to make you feel anxious. I think the lack of people also adds to it. Admittedly, I found it very easy to get lost, so a minimap would have helped a lot, I feel.
Love the noir style PI narration too. Can't believe you had time to put in voiceovers! You continue to put me in awe, my friend.
As others have said, it's impressive especially for a jam (voices, art, immersiveness) but it's kinda easy to get lost: I talked to sheriff, then citizen 1, citizen 2 and I spent around 10 minutes before finding citizen 3 (the one that leads you to a tomb in the woods). Maybe some kinda minimap with villager dots could be nice? (but I can imagine I'd detract from the immersiveness somewhat).
Citizen 3 led me to the tomb, then he kept walking in one spot somewhat away from the scene. I looked in the visor and saw a bunch of people. I thought the game bugged out, so I waited for citizen 3 to finish walking (he was quiet the whole time). Nothing visible happened for around a minute (visor or normal vision) and then I suddenly got game over'd. "Oh, maybe I was supposed to run the moment I saw bunch of dead people in the visor? But they didn't seem to notice or pursue me..."
Anyway it's an amazing project of a big scale especially for a jam (immersive 3D environments, voice over, lots of hand drawn art), and it's super cool that you amazed to pull it off in just three days! Other commenters seem to be more lucky with bugs, so I can imagine the story goes much deeper. One of the top contenders for sure!
Amazing job on creating an immersive and creepy environment for your game. The voice acting was superb and really did well to convey the story in an easy but also effective way. I very easily get spooked by horror, so the ending of your game had my heart racing LOL. Couple bugs here and there, but overall, very solid experience! Great Job :)
Thank you <3
Spooky game! I was literally creeped out at the ending. Good writing and atmosphere, impressive job!
<3
This is damn impressive for a mini jam game, a little confusing at times, some fairly odd bugs (someone already mentioned the walk animations thing)- but still very impressive nonetheless; the 3D models, voice acting (a mini jam game with voice acting !!!) and I quite like the charming 2D art at the beginning. :)
What's with the "Current Objective: asdasd" ? :D
Thanks a lot for the feedback!
lol haven't seen the objective part yet lol - must've missed a placeholder
Great ambience and overall presentation, this game was a lot of fun!
Only thing I can say is that the location of the archives wasn't clear, but judging by other comments I think that's an issue only I had.
Great game!
Thank you!
Interesting - it was right into the entry of the police station ( tough not neccesary to complete in order to ,,win,, the game ) - I think I couldve placed the door better so you see it when you come in, so you got a point there!
Any other suggestions/what couldve made it more clearer for you?
I found it immediately after dying and going through again so I think its fine, figured I was missing something once I was at the rock and nothing was happening... until I died to the figure I couldn't see because of my lack of a camera
The presentation was stunning, really good job with the voice over and having such a big map to explore. I really liked the concept of having to find clues with the camera.
I'm not too sure how well the limitation is being applied, but nonetheless, fantastic job!
Thank you for the feedback!
About the limitation - im not so sure either, it's more a out of the box thing = Youre not a Hero because you couldn't Save ,,John,,
Saw a lot of entries just making themself the Anti Hero, so I wanted to do sth. that stands out a bit from the rest of the entries :D
This is really impressive. I liked it a lot and it's visible all the effort you put into this. The mysterious vibe, the voiceover, and the music work so great together. I got lost a little, maybe because I was walking through the map before talking to the sheriff? But once I found out what to do, it was really nice.
Great job!
This is a really underrated submission.
It's amazing how much effort you put into this!
Artstyle, voiceover and storywriting are top notch!
IMpressiv work for this GameJam , great story telling, got me going although I don t like horror games, its very well made, just the clues where to go are missing a litte
;)
Thanks for the great submission
Super impressed with the writing and voicework you pulled off for such a short jam. The game has a great atmosphere, but I found it frustrating how the "fail" condition (to avoid spoilers) puts you back at the start. I think some kind of hidden checkpoint system for completing certain interactions would really help with this. Overall, though, I had a good time with it. Nice work!
Thank you for the feedback!
Will def work on a save system for it :)
impressive
<3
Did I complete the game?: I played for 30-40 minutes and sadly could not figure out how to complete it. I kept dying and when the resident would lead me to the circle with the monsters he would get stuck in his walk cycle, so I'm not sure if he was supposed to go somewhere else afterwards.. but basically I would just die every time. I tried looking around too and running away pretty far.
What I liked: the 3D models were great. the voice acting was great and the words were cool and moody. and the atmosphere was cool. I liked the idea of using the camera to see the ghosts etc. it made for a scary experience when the monsters started chasing me. I liked the person who kept spinning and you couldn't see their face. That was clever.
What I would suggest: It might have just been me but the opening scene I could barely hear any of the words. The music was too loud. The fog is way too intense. Like so intense that playing for 30 minutes hurt my eyes. I was constantly squinting to try to see. I like the idea of it, but yeah tone it down a little. The sherrif and as I mentioned the other resident got stuck in their animations and didn't keep moving. They just stayed in place.
Overall: Great atmosphere and mood. Has potential to be a fun and really engaging experience, but I felt lost as to what I should do. I wandered around a lot and really was clueless and didn't discover the camera thing until half way through. So yeah, clearer guidance on what I'm doing or more characters/people just giving hints and things would be better. I can see you put a lot of work and effort into this though, so I want to acknowledge that this is impressive for a jam game.
Ah damn - sorry didnt have enough time to put enough hints/other Characters - Youre supposed to get into the Car again after you've seen ,,some things,, - That will lead to the ending :D
Ahhh that was my last idea that I didn't try. I kept thinking I'd be able to "beat" it somehow. They'd usually kill me before I got to the car, but I got to say great experience overall. It has a lot of potential!
Really cool! So atmospheric and the voice work is great!
Love the environment and atmosphere. Great job guys!
For me it looked really cool but I didn't know what to do next after talking to the sherif and I didn't find the archives. But the Music was really good.
Yeah I saw someome with the same mistake - the archive is basically right in the sheriffs room ( theres a door )
However, you dont need it in order to progress - you can still ,,find,, John :D
Im working on a fix atm :)
Due to the lack of subtitles, I did not understand what to do. I am not a native English speaker. All I understand is that we need to find John. Walking around the world, I had the feeling that this was another craft on the unity, because of the many freemodels. The field of vision are very small, which is why it is terribly uncomfortable to play. Unless the openings at the beginning are very beautiful. I also noticed a few issues with the animations and how the characters move. (using translator)
Good Point with Subtitles and FoV - Will add Settings for it in the next Iteration :)
This is really cool, but I am too dumb. This the best 3d models I have ever seen in a game jam. Check out my live review at https://www.twitch.tv/scalphamission
Ah damn I see - I need to make it more obvious that you need to use the camera + flash to get to the end :/
= At the Sight one enemy starts to walk at you, you need to flash him to make him stop moving towards you, it looked like in your stream you kept looking away from him thus not knowing what killed you ( Any feedback on how to solve that would be great )
Thanks for the positive feedback! ( Btw, the music/voices are always doubled in your stream )