Oh my GOODNESS gracious. I didn't know you were doing this jam! first off!! that's so cool!! I just adore the style of the art of this one. It looks so TRUE to how crayon drawings look I felt like I could smell the crayon as I played. The simplicity and effectiveness of everything is really amazing. I know I said this about your last game too but, in my opinion it's harder to emote with a simple shape and style than a really complicated one. And you had me crying over these stick figures haha. Completely insane.
Spoilers for anyone who cares!
The slow unveiling of what happened and how I felt I didn't fully understand the picture until the very end was really well done. I think you found a good balance of subverting expectations without being too whacky about it. And I think it's a really brave and authentic choice to leave a lot unexplained. The magic details of how all this works isn't what important - the emotions are. and you NAILED that.
Maybe I'm just bad at puzzles haha but I felt like I just stumbled through the engine puzzle. Oh! but I loved that the engine looked like a crayon! idk if that was intentional but it made me chortle. And I'm noticing there's a lot of polaroid cameras in your games! Right? I love that.
The "storybook" sequence was beyond beautiful. I loved the fuzz? almost? on the screen and the way all the images moved and moved. I started crying when the second stone was dropped with the lonely one and pretty much didn't stop crying until the credits.
And speaking of credits I was crying and missed the music credit! I saw it just go by but couldn't read it. I wanted to ask - if you message me on discord maybe, would you mind maybe sharing the sheet music or notes with me? I'd love to make a fan song or remix or something with it, it really moved my heart. Hope that's not too weird or overstepping!
Also - SEABOUND I get it!!! Oh that's good. That's awesome. It just clicked for me with what he said at the end. Ohhh my heart.
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aaahh i'm so glad you liked it!! i love getting comments from you, they're so detailed and always put a smile on my face <3 (and i WILL be playing your game on this jam ofc >:D just give me a little time to rest cause making this almost killed me-)
i'm really happy to hear you enjoyed the crayon look! i drew everything by hand with actual crayons, and i'm really proud with how everything ended up. considering i have zero artistic skills this style was a nice way to use what i do know to make everything look good. it's one of those things where i was like "hey, i have the tools to make it... it could look really cool... YEAH F IT IM DOING IT". and i'm super glad that it paid off!! :D (i am single handedly maintaining the crayon and paper industries alive lol. especially with the 'moving' effect; i had to draw everything four times for that... pain)
i'm also extremely happy the story worked for you. it was obviously the central point of everything, all of the "puzzle" parts were pretty much an excuse to get to the next portion of the ship (that's why i tagged the game as a visual novel). i'm really glad i had the time to convey everything i wanted to convey. and it's awesome the emotions worked for you enough to not care about the unexplained details, i was kinda banking on that happening or the entire game wouldn't work haha. (i had a couple things planned to explain things a bit more, but i had to cut them for time. i do mean a couple tho, i was very much leaning into the unexplained magic feel).
ngl, i was fully aware as i was making the pistons puzzle that it wasn't ideal, but i was running out of time and it was the only thing i could think of HAHAHA. so i did make sure you can stumble through it if you don't understand it lmao. and the looking like crayons thing wasn't intentional actually! man that's such a cool idea! why didn't i think of that! XD
i actually have no clue why i use cameras so much, i don't think i've ever even owned one. guess they're just a good storytelling device lmao.
oh man, don't get me STARTED on the beach cutscene. it was by far the hardest thing of the entire development process. i had to storyboard for the first time in my life haha. every single scene was extremely time consuming, but i REALLY wanted to make it. and hey, i actually did, and i'm beyond happy it worked for you! :D and fun fact, the fuzzy look was an accident; i made the first drawings kinda small and had to scale them up. but i ended up really liking how it got a bit pixelated so it stayed that way!
:O i'm honored you're asking for that!!! i know it's a small thing that appears at the start and at the end, but the song was legit the first part of the game i came up with. and i'm so so happy you liked it!! the credits say i composed it, but someone else (who didn't mind not being credited) played it cause i have no instruments knowledge. i asked them to send me a pic of it, and i'll share it with you when they do!
i know i've rambled a lot but man, it's so SO awesome to hear people have played and liked my games. it really makes all the effort worth it. you can probably tell from my complaining and the fact i submitted this 20 minutes before the deadline but i was really crunching for time, especially by the end. it's the biggest amount of work i've ever done for a game, and y'know what? i'm glad it was! it's nice to challenge myself sometimes :> (but i definitely could've managed my time better lmao).
to quote the credits, thank you for playing!! <3
p.s.: i'd say i'm taking a break after this, but i said that the last time and look at what happened HAHA. let's just leave it at i'll make another game if i want to and i won't if i don't want to. yeah, that's good.