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A jam submission

Sorokins FamilyView game page

Just an ordinary family that is always being watched.
Submitted by HamezTeam (@HamezTeam) — 7 hours, 6 minutes before the deadline
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Sorokins Family's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
How would you rate this game?#44.3104.310

Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Who is on your team or helped with your game?
Solo project, everything was done by BGDN.

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Comments

(+1)

Ah, I just missed the voting window! Dammit!

Still, I can confidently say, I really dislike this kind of navel-gazing, meandering pseudo-philosophy. I mean, I guess it comes with the territory of trying to write semi-seriously about abstract, spectral entities, but still... not my cup of tea.

That said, the prose is very competent. My Russian is only intermediate level, so I can't really judge properly, but from the bits I read, the dialogue sounds very natural and believable. The English translation is obviously scuffed, badly scuffed — typos, mixing up similar sounding words, inconsistent tense — but it manages to get the meaning and atmosphere across well enough.

And the framing device of having the characters be described as if they're being observed from outside their windows is very creepy and effective. I really like that part, though I'm not sure how it ties into the central themes, if at all.

Overall, very solid showing! I may not like it personally, but you're clearly a fine writer!

Developer

Thank you for the review! Yes, a lot of this games writing is deliberate in terms of pretentiousness and edgyness. Partly as a reference to an actual post-modern writer Vladimir Sorokin! I'll update the translation in the following days since the jam is over and also add some more context to why some parts of the game are the way they are. But anyway, thank you for the honest review, I'm really glad you still enjoyed it to some extent even though it's not your cup of tea :) 

норм

(+1)

That was a game

(+1)

Игра стоит того, чтобы ее пройти!

(+1)

Эту игру делал король спуки-игр, обязательна для ознакомления

Submitted(+1)

That was so peculiar I don't even know how to feel haha. Very interesting, but I would have preferred it to be a little more explained about what is actually happening.

Developer

Thank you for the review! Keep an eye out for an update: as soon as the jam will be over I'll upload version with fixed english translation and some extra explanations, to clarify some parts, themes and references in the game :) 

(1 edit) (+1)

The fact that this game is a solo project is worthy of respect, but despite all of this "Sorokin's Family" is not my cup of tea. Like at all. I really enjoyed previous project of Hamez team — "Big Dengi", because I really saw the idea of the project and enjoyed it's realization . 

This game's just raw, edgy, unreasonably explicit and too vague to fully understand it's idea. The developer has his own unique vision, but it needs to be brought to a form that is convenient for the player. 

And yeah, music and sound design are dope.


(+1)

Проект норм, но по-моему немного затянутая новелла. 

(+1)

Как соло проект так или иначе достойно уважения. Как игра пока не впечатлило, но надеюсь на дальнейший рост.

История Сорокиных лишена некоторой глубины и поэтому если читать о них вроде бы имеет какой-то интерес, но не настолько что-бы иметь интерес что-то выбирать когда нам собственно дают эту возможность.

Считаю именно недостаток эмпатии к семье о которой ведётся рассказ самый большой недостаток. Мы их банально не успеваем возлюбить или возненавидеть. Поскольку у нас к тому же есть четыре концовки, то в основном какой-то интерес представила только концовка A, но и она без недостатков. Если я оценю их по впечатлениям то все равно именно она выглядит решительно интереснее других. От того думаю и не лучше то что другие концовки больше разочаровывают чем "награждают" игрока.

Графика бедная, но не в самом прямом смысле, а в том что нам не показывают как мне кажется очень много ключевых моментов и не пытаются впечатлить какими-то выглядящими по тексту скажем так интересными моментами которые к сожалению не украшены графикой и потому потеряли свою "сочность".

Но при этом здесь не подвел один компонент - это саундтрек, он даже выбивается из картины, он вполне себе имеет право быть отделен от игры.

В остальном больше напрашивается вывод что история не задевает и большую часть времени на эту семью наплевать, поэтому и концовки тоже не особо работают.

(+1)

Понравилось, что выборы в новелле давали почувствовать себя исследователем человеческих чувств и их душонок. Ну и концовка с раем отличная, думаю, семья Сорокиных ее заслужила. Это знало, что им действительно нужно

Submitted(+1)

I don't know what I just read but that's my kind of jam. Didn't really mind the explicit content, you can find much more disgusting stuff by reading a newspaper.

The game definitely nails the eerie feel. The mechanical-sounding English lines actually add to the atmosphere, as if even the narrator doesn't grasp what the fuck is going on.

I don't know if we are supposed to guess a story from this. My literal read was angel-xenomorph-hybrid infects a family and maybe the government is involved.

I did notice a minor mistake, in the scenes with the child drawings, some of the lines are in Russian even if you choose English on the preferences menu.

After playing this and some of Ice Pick Lodge's stuff, I gotta say Russians should ditch invading in favor of making more weird horror media.

Developer

Thank you for the review! Your read of the story is pretty spot on actually! Not to break any mysteries but just to kind of explain further: in this game you observe reality through eyes of something that doesn't understand it. Therefore it's up for interpretation! 

And thank you for the bug report, I will fix it immediatly! 

(+1)

Quite an interesting experience. A lot of things need to be interpreted independently.

(+2)

It was a mysterious experience. The implememtation was a bit unsuccessful, imho. Personally, I would have liked more details about the game world and characters, because I am not a big fan of abstract plots . The music and soundtrack are sick. 

Also, explicit content seems kinda edgy, ngl.

Developer

Thank you for the crtitique! It was edgy on purpose as a reference to writer Vladimir Sorokin as well as the structure and obscurity in general. Surreal experience through the surreal lense. 

I'll try to dial it down in later games, thank you for ther responce! 

Submitted(+2)

Avoiding typos and correct punctuation are important. Especially when a game is majorly made out of text, without too much art or gameplay to back the story up.

I don't mind if the story takes time to build up, but it has to be correct at least. There are a few places where I think the writer means something else (ex: visible > one cannot see things), and the text does not make perfect sense in English. The "guessing" part is extremely difficult due to losing context in translation.

Lastly, trying to please people with explicit content in a game is very tricky. Dedicated explicit game enjoyers have high standards for them, even surpassing SFW video games. So be very, very careful when you play this card.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the feedback! The english isn't my native language and having a dedicated translator wasn't an option either, unfortunatly.  So I tried my best for text to be at least readable and understandable. Some parts of it are weird and unreadable on purpose though both in english and in it's original language. Not to try and justify illiteracy, but just to clarify things. I'll try and fix the translation later, 

For the explicit content part, yes, I'm a fan of such in horrors as well, so my take was to make something that would disturb and creep out me in hopes that it would have the same effect on other players. Also the expicit scenes are homage  to a writer Vladimir Sorokin in the way they are structured and play out.

Once again, I'm very thankful for the critique and try to do better in the future games!