| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #34 | 4.396 | 4.396 |
| Creativity | #167 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Simplicity | #202 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| WOWIE! | #221 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
| Fun | #305 | 3.292 | 3.292 |
| Topic | #697 | 2.396 | 2.396 |
| Sound | #831 | 1.604 | 1.604 |
Ranked from 48 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
It looks sooo good! It's so atmospheric and dark and I love the color coding you used! Great job!
I'm not a super big fan of the *does something* writing style, but besides that I think that the dialogue is written pretty well! I enjoyed the characters and how you fleshed them out in such a short play time!
And I'd love to play a version with some soundeffects. I think even some tiny sounds could improve the atmosphere a lot and make it even more scary!
Good job on the art, it looks really great, and the dialog is quite well written, like they have their own established inside jokes that don't get explained to the audience which makes them seem more alive. Sound and animations are lacking, but you already addressed that. I also see people already recommended you play Firewatch, your game also reminded me of it.
I'm stunned! The art is amazing, the story is really nice, really reminds me of Firewatch (ah the memories) and it manages to keep you hooked for the short 5 minutes it lasts :)
Only problem is that the player sprite isn't correctly animated, it's constantly in a move cycle even when you don't move, and the player kind of hides some of the background! Also it doesn't fit the theme, i guess, but it's not the point of the jam either.
Thank you so much for the kind words and feedback! (Also Firewatch is now 100% on my list of games to play since I've been told that twice now).
As for the character animation, due to the limitations of the engine (gonna be moving this to a new engine from scratch), the character has to remain animated at all times and also sadly clips on top of other tile layers since there is no layering systems, I had to hand paint/draw every single pixel on the screen in 16x16 grids.
Though as for the theme I was playing with the progress through failure in the sense that as a ranger you fail completely at saving the forest but you progress in saving yourself through injury and saving the two others!
I get the theme now, it makes sense!
But yeah holy moly i cannot even understand how you haven't played Firewatch yet. I mean it's not that i care but your game's story and alot of the dialogue is so similar to Firewatch this is incredible! I urge you to play it, it's very short, i think it's like 2 or 3 hours tops if you take your time, and it's absolutely amazing.
That was probably the only storytelling game I've seen in this game and you executed it to basically perfection! Nothing else really to comment or say here, except that some eerie music as well to set the mood even more would've been a great addition! Needless to say, really nice job and well done!
Dang I am in love with this game. You can only do so much with '2' colors but you told an entire story ~ speaking of 2, great job on having a separate 'overworld' and 'indoor' exploration. It gives this really unique sense of depth. I agree, exposition might be too heavy at first. With what you already have in the game, I know you have the skills to "show not tell". Wonderful game! Wonderful work. I am excited to see you use a different game engine, I bet you'll be a powerhouse!
I like your retro style. You manage to install a dramatic atmosphere without any music, just we a good story telling. Well done.
The story and the visuals are great ! Good job. A sound design and a music would be completed the great ambiance you start to create !
I liked the story quite a lot. It's told in a unique way with the items you interact with being the transition to revealing more of the story. The graphics were quite nice and fit the vibe of the game. Nice job!
as others have said, love the visuals, wish there was some sound to match, but you have an excellent style :)
The visuals are nice with the retro feel. But I didn't actually follow much of the text.. The game can be expanded to bring in more game mechanics post-jam. It's got potential.. and might as well include some sounds. Good luck!
The game looked great, but so much things to read, I was just hitting space bar spamming to skip them faster but seemed no ending, over all very nice graphics.
Cool visuals and art style 😊.
The text does slow down the game pace in the beginning and do not think I got the theme, but it was fun to play and I enjoyed it. Keep up this work!
Thank you so much! Yeah I know the exact spot or two that could do without, thanks for the feedback. I plan on making a lot more in the near future and as for the connection to the theme. It has to do with the failure as a park ranger to keep the forest safe but progressing through and saving two souls including his own!
I'm a bit confused with the connection to the theme, but it looks great and I could see myself playing more of it.
Yo, thank you so much! I worked my butt off to make this world look good. Though I highly advise caution on using bitsyHD it came with so many issues, if you wanna know exactly what I'll gladly let you know but it's A LOT. (Since it's based in a very old version of bitsy I'm sure that's why but might be able to figure out how to mod bitsy to allow the 16bit)
well you did a crazy good work, 1bit pixel is tough and you really made it different from what we can usually see! very atmospheric and unique! haha thanks for the warning l havent even considered that 😂 l only launched my first game a few days ago, l'll try to dabble around before launching something big and ragequit midgame!! you might have saved my gamedev 😂
Cool game! I love the 1 bit aesthetic, it is one of my favorites and you pulled it off really well! The world had a lot of atmosphere, the environments were really well crafted. I really liked how the world changed colors after a certain point, that was cool. I'm not sure how this fits the theme though? Also it looked a bit awkward when the player's background clipped in from of background elements, but that could just be a limitation of bitsy, idk
Yo thank you so much! Also yeah limitations of bitsy make the environment clip sadly. As for the topic, it's something I wanted to hit on harder but (the HdBitsy hack had so many issues) so I had to keep simplifying. It's a story about the failure of a park ranger protecting his forest and self, but progressing through and saving a life still. (Also again thank you, I don't really do pixel art and I worked so hard to make this world have a good atmosphere.)
Thank you!! Yeah this game and my first ever jam (in the OG 8bit Bitsy a year ago) are my first times doing pixel art, I'm an illustrator outside of game dev, but I never thought the skill would transfer as well as it did from using a mouse (pixels) vs a pen (inking). Yeah he saves the cat, maybe I didn't make that super clear, in the ending dialogue.
I'm not entirely sure how this fits the topic, but it's a fun little narrative. Bit of a head scratcher in how one uses the keys though. Never did figure that out.
The topic point was about the failure of protecting the forest and himself but progressing through and still saving the cat.
I wanted to hit harder on the topic but my engine I used wasn't letting me without corrupting all my files, so I made due with what I had. Glad you enjoyed the narrative and as for the keys, "When the fire rises, so too do the halls of Lenny."
(Easter egg content was the only thing the engine didn't fully brick when left in.)
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