just need to lie on the floor after reading this. ough that was heavy. oh. OH please tell me i did NOT just do all that next to a freddy fazbear plush
i liked:
- very pleasing animation and character art; music and voice acting were definite highlights. FANTASTIC reads + musical mood in the second half... my heart...
- great GUI design and runs perfectly. able to view history and make different choices with ease. very delighted to dig through the files to find some goodies and also as a gameplay element. great touch!!!
- grounded writing, very down to earth and taken seriously. great attention to character's inner thoughts. 100% felt like talking to a friend i know.
i disliked:
- the themes covered in this are ultimately very sensitive, and played with a very respectable realism. with that comes a special handling of its plot and what you can "do", so i personally felt the overall gamejam theme was lost in trying to put both of these together. i viewed this is a game about death, how it's handled, and how others process it, first and foremost, rather than gamejam themes of possible displacement or short feeling of uncomfortableness (rather than a lifelong one)
- the order of events/timeline regarding the recording confused me and friends i streamed to enough that we left our first playthrough quite sour due to this grave misinterpretation on our side, that could have been structured better narratively or hinted at in more obvious ways to not be simultaneously vague (in the first half) and then in-your-face (literally enacted in the second)
This was a tough one to do and I genuinely can't get over the amount of polish that went into what's here. Absolutely blown away by every aspect of the audio, and can't get over the charm of Than's tattoo. The story is heartbreaking and yes, I want to match tattoos. Stellar work!