This was a pretty interesting puzzle game, but unfortunately, my brain is way too small to understand what the heck is going on in most of these puzzles lol. It would be cool if you have a playthrough of your game somewhere because I'm honestly really curious as to how the puzzles are supposed to be solved and how it ends (EDIT: I finished this game while writing this comment and revisiting sections to write on :D).
The graphics are super pretty, especially with the goop puzzle. The music is great and doesn't get old (even after listening to it for a very extended period of time as I tried to find my way through this game). It all comes together for a really creepy atmosphere and I think its just amazing. Honestly, I think it would be really neat if you could port this over to a VR game somehow; I'm not sure how well that would work or play out but in my mind it would make for a really cool game.
No big complaints but here are some thoughts I had throughout the game:
- I wish there was some indication to show what I can interact with (pick up). I know you had the eye symbol to show what things are like inspectable or interactable (I'm honestly not sure which), but since it seems like it was on most of the time which confused me more than anything. I spent a lot of this game just spam clicking everything to figure out what I can do (for example, I had no clue how to input codes and didn't realize I could click on the arrows).
- This is only a problem because I'm a little stupid (or the puzzles are just too hard, idk), but I wish there were extra hints for those who get really stuck on certain parts of the puzzles.
- Another friendly addition would be a way to see which pieces are in the wrong places. You could also consider dividing the chess piece positions into 5 separate parts each with their own feedback to tell the player which ones are correct. Right now, it feels like I'm solving 5 puzzles all at the same time, and there is no feedback as to which ones I did correctly or incorrectly.
- I'm not sure if this was intentionally designed this way, but consider labelling which chess pieces refer to which person. Maybe this is just part of the puzzle but I had very little clue which chess pieces referred to which person. Some were a bit more obvious than others (like the soldier and the person bleeding), but I felt a little lost when I came back to the chessboard at 11:50. Maybe this was intentional and I was supposed to figure it out with clues given, but I couldn't. A little more on this in the first point of the spoiler section following.
SPOILERS BELOW, BEWARE READING FURTHER
you have been warned
- While writing this comment, I managed to complete the game and it turned out it was just because I couldn't recognize which chess piece was who. I finally completed the game after restarting and putting chess pieces down as I completed the puzzles. Not sure if this counts as "cheating" the puzzle, since the guy in the booth said to only come over at 11:50.
- I had no clue I could jump in this game. I'm not sure if it was necessary, but I could not find any way to get to the pigeon chess piece without needing to jump. I think leaving that out of the controls made me feel cheated when I finally found that chess piece on top of the booth.
END OF SPOILER SECTION
Excuse the long comment (and the possibly pretentious vibe of this paragraph), but most were just suggestions to hopefully improve the quality of life for the player in this game. I find that when making puzzle games, clarity of information and showing all the necessary information to solve puzzles is key for an enjoyable experience. Some things might seem obvious, but that's usually only because you created these puzzles and know how they're done.
At least for myself, my friend and I struggled with clarity when running Shadeshift by our playtesters. Many got very frustrated on puzzles as they were confused on mechanics that were poorly displayed/explained (or even never explained) as well as visual/design clarity.
Overall, I had a lot of fun playing your game. It's definitely my favourite puzzle game I've played from this jam.
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