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A jam submission

StalemateView game page

A short story of the Grimdark Future
Submitted by arcanelviejo — 1 day, 21 hours before the deadline
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Stalemate's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Adherence to the Theme#163.6433.643
Concept & Originality#273.5363.536
Flow & Clarity#272.8932.893
Overall#273.3573.357

Ranked from 28 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

I think this is a hidden gem of a story that really shines as you read though it. It starts of slow and looks like it may get bogged down, and yet turns into quite a compelling read as you go on. Very well done!

Submitted

Good read.

Submitted

It reads well, I loved the story, the ending made me look at the horizon and wonder about those stuck brothers

Submitted

This story caught me off guard. At first, I was put off by the overly long, possibly run-on, sentences. They really made getting into the story difficult, which is a shame because the overall piece was really entertaining. I'm glad I pushed on though!

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you for all your comments. After the Jam, I will update the text polishing the weak spots and correcting errors.

Submitted

I really liked your use of the reflection theme to explore the hopelessness of war, taking good advantage of the tailor-made nature of the Battle Brother and Havoc Brother factions as mirror images of each other. Very well done there. This is also going to be the first time I actually comment on a moodboard: your use of all greyscale images was a powerful and striking choice that set the mood well going into the story.

That said, the story was unfortunately very difficult to follow. I had to reread the description of the fortifications more than once, and I think some detail could have been sacrificed for clarity and precision there. You also don't mention the Havoc Brothers as the opposing faction until the bottom of the second column; since that reflection is key to your use of the theme, it really should be introduced right at the beginning.

Well done overall, though, and an effectively sombre and moody work.

Submitted

dang, thats got to be the stalest stalemate ive ever seen

great story!

Submitted

Wow, great atmosphere and descriptions! You depict the hopelessness of the situation well. I also like how you incorporated the theme.

You might want to try shortening your sentences, though. Some of them were really difficult to parse, with lots of clauses all chained together. For example, the fifth paragraph (starting with "The skirmish of the night..." is only two sentences long, but the sentences are quite complex. And toward the end of the seventh paragraph, you have a sentence with "The mirror that reflected the light that carried the messages..." This kind of nested construct can be difficult to parse.

But again--great atmosphere! I was not expecting where you took the story, and it was really delightful.

Submitted

I would have loved to know some of the messages being passed between the two sides. I enjoy the sense of frustration you conveyed through the prose.

Submitted

It was  interesting to see that what may have been a stalemate between the Battle Brothers and Havoc inevitably became stagnation as time kept passing for the two factions. Some sentences could've been broken up for ease of reading. 

It was a very atmospheric read and a good execution of the theme.

Submitted

Good atmosphere building. Some paragraphs could have been broken up. Good use of theme and stretches of time.