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Hawkinberry3 years ago(+1)

Sucking ghosts into bottles was such a surprising but satisfying mechanic! Overall, I really enjoyed the effects you put into the ghosts. And whatever post-processing effect you had while mutated was wicked! The music you chose felt pretty perfect, too. All in all, this is a fantastic game for a jam!

I also appreciated that you were able to add in a pause menu (something I didn't get time for). Being able to restart once I completely wasted the first mutation was very welcome (see my note below), since many other games I have to reboot/restart. In the final room, I definitely went into the harder of the two doors first :P But that's okay. Overall, I found the level layout to be very pleasing and not a challenge to navigate. Great job!!

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(The rest is moot, since I was typing this up as I played. Eventually I realized what the mutate ability was for: just a nice speed boost and night vision, so you can take my comment however you like!) You did a good job introducing motivation for the mechanics (ghost appears, place the bottle!) at the beginning. So when I finally got that 3rd ghost and discovered the "mutate" ability, I thought it had something to do with the large door in my way. I thought as a ghost I'd be able to: fly? phase through walls?  But what that means is that I thought I had wasted my mutation the first couple play-throughs, rather than just continuing to explore (and finding that trick wall!) :( 

Personally, I realized how important it can be to introduce new mechanics  with the motivation (or explanation) of what to do with them. But with a little experimentation, I was able to figure it out. 

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gypynkt3 years ago

Thanks for your great feedback. The music was actually written specifically for the game by Tunglith, who I've cooperated with for all my games so far.

Yeah, there is definitely an easier and a harder room in the end, but I wanted players to choose freely between them. The room with the two ghosts actually gets easier once you get what the mutation is actually doing. It resets ghosts that are chasing after you, the idea is that you mutate into a ghost, so they would not attack you anymore. So effectively it's: night vision, speed boost, ghosts ignore and can't harm you. And you can't really 'waste' it because you can build up your ghost level again with every three new ghosts you drink. I actually want to include the ability to float through crates like the ghosts can as well, but still need to figure out how to handle what happens when you end ghost mode while standing inside an object...

I agree with you though, that it needs to be set up correctly. Initially the setup for the mutation was the second ghost that corners you when you get the key in the dark passage. But the gameplay of drinking and immediately mutating was not fun, because it was really passive and sometimes you would have to get into ghost mod and wait for it to pass, just to empty your flask to get a ghost out of your way. So I changed it to the current system, but didn't have time to change the level design to match it and also didn't get to make a text explanation for it before the deadline. I plan to address this in a future update though.

Thanks for all your notes! They were really helpful

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Hawkinberry3 years ago(+1)

Ahh I didn't notice that the mutation also affects the ghosts' behavior. That does make sense! I agree, too, with your decision to make it invokable instead of automatic.

If you were going to make the player phase through boxes, you might just nudge them to the nearest free spot if they stop on a box when the mutation runs out. Would definitely require some checks, but it would seem natural to me.

(My comment about "wasting" the mutation was only my first thought, before I continued on, so it was eventually clear).

Kudos to Tunglith! Great job on the music, I'll have to see where I can give them a follow!

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tunglith3 years ago(+1)

Hey thank you so much for the kind comments, I'm still new to music producing and have been piggybacking Gypynkt's projects to experiment and improve.
As so I don't have much published but you'll find everything and all the links on my website : https://tunglith.com/ (and shortcut to my proudest track so far here).

Thanks again for the support <3.

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