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(1 edit) (+1)

There's a lot of potential here, but I'm not sure how to best rate this game, I have some conflicting thoughts.

The art style is great and works well with the theme and concept of the game. Controls are intuitive, although crouching happens too abruptly for a non-action game and can feel a bit disorienting, and at least for the web version using ESC to exit isn't the best, since it unfocuses the mouse cursor every time.

The limitation is incorporated very nicely and is integral to the core gameplay loop. I do wish you could zoom in on the instructions the same way you look at screens, otherwise it can be hard to read.

It has tons of potential and the presentation delivers that Iron Lung-esque vibe, but my main issue is a lack of real direction. Do I just maintain the three stations until the timer counts down? Do I try to find a way into the area I see past the grates? Is it even accessible? And what is causing the damage I keep fixing? Is plugging the power cell into the socket in front of the gate sealing or opening it when the valve turns?

Leaving things vague does help engage the player's imagination and that's especially helpful in horror games, but I wish there was a clearer overall thread that ties together the moment-to-moment gameplay, so that I can be engaged in an overarching goal instead of putting out fires where I see them like when playing Overcooked with a younger sibling, and more visual feedback when losing would help me want to try again. It's a solid foundation, just needs to find the right balance between "vague and mysterious" and "clear and responsive".

Edit: Oh and subtitles for the ending sequence would be great too, I couldn't make out everything, but appreciate that you added some voice acting too.

(1 edit)

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback, I’l try address everything.

In regards to the zooming, it is possible to zoom arbitrarily using RMB (right mouse button), in this case maybe providing a UI element that displays controls might make it easier for everyone to know what they can and can’t do in the game.

The crouching is definitely quite fast and can be a simple fix to the tweens that I use to move the camera up and down. Something worth considering is that an auto crouch had to be developed to fix a few of the player collision related issues we were having (such as jumping out of the engine room and fitting through the holes to each area). By slowing it down we could potentially have the camera clipping inside of the walls for a longer duration of time, one way to fix that is possibly to preemptively crouch before approaching those narrow spaces. It’s good to know regardless, thank you for pointing that out.

The continuity in the story and real direction is definitely in need of work, in all fairness 72 hours doesn’t provide a lot of affordance for that. We can definitely make a greater effort on that in the future but I think we made the right choice by focusing on creating a tight gameplay loop first.

My personal answers for some of your questions: The systems are maintained until the timer counts down to get “rescued”. The area past the gates is inaccessible but we wanted to fill this space in, maybe it gives the illusion that the area is accessible :( . It is implied that the “thing” on board is dealing the damage to the systems, which wears out the door’s ability to hold it back (but I can argue that it wouldn’t make sense for the engine room to break if the thing is at the door). Plugging the power cell in at the door winds the door closed, but I think adding something like a meter / bar in combination with the door would have helped to provide a more intuitive understanding of what happens.

I agree about the subtitles, definitely getting that in there in a polishing stage.

I’d fix these things but I’m only fixing game breaking bugs and not impacting gameplay, at least during the rating period of the jam. Very thankful for your review, I’m glad you gave our project so much feedback ❤️