This is a really interesting entry. The story is captivating and the design and audio is amazingly underlining the experince you are conveying. Really polished aswell.
Just some things I would consider: On the one side, the core game mechanic felt disconnected to the story you were telling. It sometimes felt like the story told though the tapes (really breathtaking!) was something completely different to the game played. It would have been nice if you introduced more elements which are part of that story (e.g. other obstacles instead of just construction sides). You could also consider changing the chess theme to something more fitting.
On the other side I was quite shoked by the ending. It was really sad and cruel to me to introduce the suicide of the main character so suddenly. For me personally, it would have been much deeper if you told a story of the father processing his sorrow and emotions and finding back to something like "inner peace". This would especially fit your heard-warming words in the end.
All in all a really special experience and also a special entry for a game jam. Please keep up your work and only take those thoughts as inspiration for the next experience you create. Mindfully dealing with mental issues in games is a hard challenge! Glad you dared to take it.
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Thanks for the thorough feedback! I really appreciate it :)
Agree with everything you've said. I guess I should've made the connection between the story and puzzle elements more clear. Basically I wanted to represent the different bucket list items as places and thought of a chessboard :)
As for the shocking ending, I'm glad that's how it got conveyed. I made this game for a friend who's recently committed suicide. There were no signs, nothing. This game was my way to cope with the shock, I guess.
Thanks for playing!!