Interesting idea. The compass directions seemed pretty irrelevant to actually getting around though, I was just wandering around over a whole floor until I found the person. The way the camera moves up and down in the platforming areas is not good, it should follow more smoothly. Also please give the ability to do shorter jumps by holding the button for a shorter time. Making the player walk slower when energy is low feels bad when there's no way to restore it. The UI covers the top of the screen so much that it hides exits that are up there. The graphics are pretty nice, especially considering the low resolution, and you did a good job coming up with enough different stuff to find in a business building that the rooms don't look too repetitive. I also like all the name references.
Viewing post in Dijkstra Inc. jam comments
Thanks. Yeah, I realize in retrospect that the compass was a bit irrelevant from the viewpoint of the player (made more sense in my original design). I was trying to duplicate the camera of Zelda Gameboy games, but unfortunately did not make it very successful for the side-scroller sections. I had hoped to fix issues like the UI and energy refills. Both I wanted to really work on more, but ran out of time due to work. I tried to work around the UI issue by having those carpets in doorways, but it definitely was a poor workaround.
I'm glad you liked the graphics and variety - I am heavily inspired by 2D Zelda games and other Gameboy games. I love the low resolution and find it easier to work with. I was going to just stick with only physicists and mathematicians for names, but then I quickly realized the building has too many workers, so I had to include TV characters, college friends, etc. Haha.