(Spoilers ahead)

This game starts strong, with the crash to the big wave with a great song, I liked that.

I really liked that the song indicates what is going to happen, from danger, to chill and explore, to what will happen, to danger again, big fan of this. :D 

It’s a short map but it’s nice and clear in some indications due the scanner and journal. Things I didn’t like about the map, one was the mirror/antenna that burns the wood at the distance only because when I was close to it, the mirror didn’t give me the option to interact with it because I was in front and not in the back, so would be nice if you could move it from any side of it. I thought it was a prop to decorate the mountain and that when the heat came, if I put a flower on it, the wood would burn haha

The other was the boulder to unlock the library, I knew I had to use it to broke the door, but each time I put it so the big wave could break it, didn’t work because I put the rock too close to the door, only worked when I put it to the start of the road, I know this is more on me but I felt while playing that near should also work a little bit.

Outside of that, I really like the way to point out the safe zones of the wave, the green parts are clear and feels nice when you are under the wave, the interactions of the map with the player, like the water mill stopping when you are in the way or the boat in the water. The transition from volcano to big wave to cloudy it’s a nice touch how smooth it goes with the song. How the ship ends up in the extreme of the map for the wave, the effect of heat due the volcano, those small details are great.

The other thing I didn’t like was the respawns, the 1st time I died to the wave, each time I respawned I got instakilled due the wave, somehow putting an object while dead made the spawn work again, I was trapped like 4-5 deaths, then again happened when I wanted to get out of the shelter, and in general, getting out of the shelter was a bit difficult due the spawn and timing the tide and getting out, I got a bit frustrated due this because I wanted to end the game and I didn’t want to refresh the page.

The story was nice, I liked the small texts and the ending, oh and I don’t know if it’s intended that when you scan near places with text, you can see them through the walls or ground.

I’m happy I got to use the world's random objects since I was carrying them around almost all the time haha and nice to see no fall damage, I could just jump around

I didn’t mind most of the wait for the cycle moments because the song was great.

In general I really liked the game, as a whole it’s great to play, just the respawn was the sour time but I had fun!

Thanks for sharing :)

wow cool game , these are some intense weather effects, was just basically looking at a tidal wave and going well i guess I die now 

Finally completed the game, wow this is very nice! Interstellar waves in a game as the main gimmick?  Sign me in! The game is a bit overwhelming at the start, but once you know what to do and what's happening, it turns to be a masterpiece in the jam. Love it soooo much! The graphics also reminds me of those old games I played as a kid, and that really works well with the "lack of directions", the music and the tone.  Good job!

A few things to point out is that the HUD just doesn't match well with the game, feels like it is bringing down the first impression quite a bit. Also, there are so few things to pick up, the finally puzzle are a bit obvious and gave me an "o..kay? Expected?" kinda vibe. But these are just minor things and I am sure can be fixed easily.

Overall this is a very good game! Well done!

Wow, what an amazing game! Right from the start, I'll tell you this felt like a complete experience already!

// SPOILER WARNING

The concept of the story is really cool, exploring and figuring out the puzzles is interesting, and it's all elevated by the weather and natural disaster phenomenons. Seeing that giant tsunami growing from the distance and the sheer scale of it makes encountering it in the beginning terrifying, and encountering it in the endgame still somewhat fear inducing. It was awesome to see it slowly approaching the land every time before taking cover!

The music is super nice, I loved it, and the fact that you used a musical cue to hint when things are gonna start going down was a super smart and very well appreciated move! When I heard the end of the calmer track, I was like "Waaait a minute, something's not right, is it?".

The one thing I'll point out is that I tried a few times putting the boulder in front of the library, but nothing would happen because the boulder would get its position reset even if I survived the tsunami. I'm not sure if completely intentional, but for a pretty long while I thought that wasn't the solution because it hadn't worked so many times.

The map and the annotations are a great touch and lets the player always get a reminder of where things are and what they found in these places, which also helps to keep track of the story being told. 

I really enjoyed this game, this was great. Very well done!

Awesome game, quite ambitious for a game jam. I love the soundtrack and the clever island layout

Very ambitious game for a game jam. It works, and it was interesting to play, but without the comments spoiling the puzzles I would have given up I think.

Mostly because I knew what I had to do: stop the wheel and bash the door with the boulder, but the actual process by which that was achieved was not intuitive for me. I tried setting up the boulder in front of the door and it would just respawn at its normal spot. And I tried using rocks to jam the wheel to no avail. Even reading the hint of the person falling into it I did not think of jumping on it as jamming it.

I think the best part of the game is the design of the wave looming over you. That was definitely the hook and very well realized.

I'm also surprised of how well this runs. I guess Unity WebGL is way better than Godot WebGL...

One thing I noticed is that the theme of alchemy and shadows is very loosely interpreted. I checked the GDD and I saw the explanation but it still kind of feels like an afterthought.

Narratively the game was also very loose. Something about crystals and some government project in a bunker, and the planet waves... the broad scope made it very vague and missing details, that leaves the mind of the player with the job of filling the gaps.

Overall, it's a really good entry that I enjoyed playing to the end.

Never played outer wilds, but it's crazy how good this is for a two-week project.
That feeling of the wave blacking out the sun as the music kicks in is amazing.
The library puzzle needs a more generous hitbox though.

I loved Outer Wilds, so I liked this game by proxy. That said, the experience wasn’t without a hitch.

First of, bugs:

• There’s some problem with camera tilt on slopes. I manage to turn my camera completely upside down. Which is basically a “must restart” situation.
• You can get stuck in a death loop. Die -> respawn inside a wave -> die again -> repeat.

I also think think that the game needs some sort of a movement mechanic, like I don’t know, a jet-pack. Just walking everywhere gets tedious. Exploration could be improved with some sort of UI compass, to make navigation easier because you don’t always see the landmarks.

I also think that that the game could give more feedback when your idea of a solution of a puzzle is wrong. For example:

Overall, this is an impressive entry that with some polish can become an excellent game.

I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece of a video game in a gamejam, I need to collect my thoughts a bit before writing this...Wow.

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DO NOT READ THIS BEFORE YOU PLAY THE GAME HEAVY SPOILERS

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Okay so there are a few minor things I'm just going to get out of the way right away so we can move on from them.

The UI specifically the health/inventory bar looks absolutely terrible. Specifically the heart it's so oddly out of place compared to the rest of the game and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Here's the thing though. If someone puts down a pristine high class steak infront of me, but the garnish on top is a little eh. I'm not going to refuse to eat the steak am I? Hell no.

The puzzles were a little confusing mostly because I didn't know how to interact with the items required to solve them. One in particular, the waterwheel I may have cheesed? I just jumped into it and it stopped moving? I was originally trying to move one of the log rafts over to the other little pond and assumed it would get caught in the wheel and stop it, but then I noticed after trying to push out the logs that they were confined to their own area. Did I solve this one as intended?

The rock/library, I wasn't really sure if I was supposed to break the doors myself so I tried hitting the door a couple of times with the big rock but after it not working I just left it at the top of the little slope and when I came back afer the wave hit it was open. I assume this is the intended design?

The mirror. I didn't really have a problem with the mirror other than it being kinda hard to see where it was actually pointing, once I noticed the circle on the landscape it was fine but a little beam of light or something would have been really helpful. It's not a huge deal just a little nitpick from me.

I got softlocked, twice? I think. Once in the crashed ship because the checkpoint just puts you back into it, you just need to wait it out and then run to safety. Then the second time in the bunker again due to a checkpoint. Although I feel like the bunker is intentional because I noticed it quickly triggers another wave to let you out? Then you need to quickly run to safety. Not sure if it was a softlock tbh It feels more intended.

Okay that's pretty much all the feedback or issues I had now on to the rest.

I absolutely love this game. Suffice to say I'm a big Outer Wilds fan and you captured the formula and spirit of that game in a bottle with Shadow of the Wake.

The initial opening scene with the crash landing had me immediately interested because I was like "wow, there's a whole island? That's pretty ambitious". Then I stopped outside and saw the giant thing (I didn't read the story in the game page before playing) so I stood there like "what the hell is that?"... Then promptly got swept away for the first time.

Immediately back on the ship I rush outside this time to beat the wave and try to stand ontop of a hill, same thing... Then it dawns on me... "Hold on... is this like Outer Wilds?" I then stay in the cave and let the first initial wave pass, my ship is gone and I have an entire island to explore. I am completely enthralled by the game at this point.

Your use of visual markers for landmarks in the distance with bright colours/shapes that stand out is perfect. You immediately sucked me in with the "ooh what's that over there?" vibes, the storytelling and hint system obviously very Outer Wilds was done with absolute perfection and I loved following every little breadcrumb you left for me and revealed in my success when discovering something new or reading more about the lore and the world.

Let's talk about the wave. It's terrifying, straight up. Seeing that thing loom over you is the stuff of nightmares and the promise of certain death and when you aren't looking at it and see the shadow creep up over you from behind it's like someone is standing behind you with a knife to your throat.

Already mentioned the UI earlier so we'll skip that but the map and hint system not only worked great it looked great too. I absolutely loved how the map started out blank until you explored more that was such a fantastic choice. The actual world and graphics themselves although simple the low poly pixelation really brought some nice charm to the world and I loved it.

The music/audio design is just pure perfection, you communicated so much with the audio design and I know I keep saying it's just like Outer Wilds but wow the sound the music the volcano eruption followed by the wave and the intense music... Watching a wave go over your head while that music plays was like having adrenaline pumped directly into my blood.

I'm not going to dive into the story or the lore of the world or anything in my review other than to say it was really well done but I want to know more about the character you play as and their role in the world. Why were they crashing on this planet? Who are they? What happens now?

I really hope you continue to work on this because if it wasn't evident enough already I absolutely loved this game from start to finish. I often say that there are few games in this world that really transcend that title and become something that I call "an experience" for me games like that are the highest form of compliment I pay because I tell people "you just have to experience it for yourself".

That is Shadow of the Wake.

This game is really cool, I can definitely see the Outer Wilds influence with the scanning and also the threat of the wave. The tsunami is awesome btw, I love the way it covers the whole island in shadow, and that there's the music cue for when it's about to hit. Having to wait for the wave to hit to solve some puzzles is fine, though maybe some way to speed up time would be helpful for these puzzles, maybe the player can wait x minutes skyrim style so they aren't just standing around waiting for the wave. The length of the game is also pretty impressive for a game jam, well done.

I was super impressed by the graphics and narrative storytelling. The sounds were also really nice to listen to. Great job!

This is a game with a lot of potential.

I really enjoyed the intro sequence of the ship crashing in from space. This being part of a short game jam (2 weeks) it's impressive to see that level of work put it something that could have been left out in favor of focusing more on the core of the game.

The biggest part of this game, what you'll encounter again and again, for better or worse, is the giant tsunami that washes over the island every now and then. Its shadow starts to blot out the sun, the tide recedes, and your screen begins to shake as it rushes over the island leaving only a select few spaces of which to stand in and watch the water fly by. It's quite a spectacle.

Unfortunately, this set piece is something you need to wait for for at least two of the puzzles and you can find yourself waiting around for it to get to new places which isn't particularly fun. The puzzles themselves, while simple once you've completed them, are not telegraphed particularly well. I feel the game could have benefited from allowing for multiple approaches to solving them. Additionally, it can be quite slow navigating the map and I think the game would benefit from a faster player speed (and perhaps jump... like a big old moon jump).

With the bad out of the way, this game still has a great atmosphere and is pleasant in general to look at and walk through (even including the looming threat of an eventual tsunami). The low-poly retro aesthetic is quite fun, and the somber music is fitting for an alien and seemingly desolate or vacated world. It's quite the sizeable game for what was a 2 week game jam. Great job!