Hey LazyBumStudio,
Having played and enjoyed Dear Edwin last year, I was very excited to read in the progress threads that the same team would be working on a new project, and this time with a focus on gameplay. Unfortunately, I might have hyped myself up a little too much and set the expectations too high.
Visuals:
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually liked the pixel style of Dear Edwin a lot more than the style used in fading remnants, and felt there was much more polish in Dear Edwin than here. I'm not sure if it was intentional or if the team ran out of time, but the presence and absence of shading/highlights on certain elements versus others (like the trees on the map versus the racks in the storage room) made the game's aesthetics look very unbalanced and unfinished. The sprites and character busts are great, though as many have mentioned, Lia not having a portrait when speaking when everyone else did took some time to register and get used to.
Story/Theme:
I know this is only a vertical slice, and I know there's a deadline, but similar to the visuals, seeing what was presented here further impressed upon me that the team might have bitten off more than they could chew. Especially considering the bar that was set by Dear Edwin.
The game's description paints a picture of a bleak, post-apocalyptic world, with phrases like ("Humanity is a lonely shell of what it once was..." and "...search for answers in a world that has forgotten mankind..."), and yet, for a good part of the demo we have three teenage(?) girls talking about eating peaches and friendly bickering with each other in a way that would seem more appropriate in a high-school slice-of-life setting. At first I even thought that through some bizarre reason peaches are now the only way to sustain life and is worth more than gold, but the game doesn't do anything to confirm or deny this idea.
The main quest dialog suggests that our protagonists seem to be in a hurry to find someone, wanting to avoid detours or being too involved with other people's troubles, but then the same trio also has time to fool around in garbage bins playing jokes on each other. As such, I have no idea how we (the audience) should be identifying with these characters and their predicaments, making it very hard to feel invested in them.
Also, the fact that they are the only human-like people in the game (so far), but also don't seem surprised to see animal-people in town, have numerous interesting implications, but what these implications are were not even slightly hinted at in the game, leaving me to wonder whether it was even necessary to present these side characters as non-humans in the demo. (ie. Chekhov's gun)
Gameplay:
For me, gameplay is about giving players agency and having interesting choices. Choices can be story choices, progression choices, battle choices, etc. but regardless of form, it's about giving players some form of self-expression and having more than one outcome. Having said that, even though there was the mouse chasing, the water pipe, and the distilling machine puzzle, I felt that those were more like interactive elements than real gameplay.
Yes, they are something to DO beyond reading dialogue and moving on the map, but not something you can PLAY with, not only because they were required to progress the story, but also because there is only one "right answer". I understand that the definition of gameplay and games differ from person to person, and so I might have simply had expectations that were not aligned with what the team had in mind.
Overall:
Make no mistake, despite my disappointments with the game, I'm fully aware of the effort and work that went into building fading remnants, and I applaud the team for that. If this review sounds especially harsh, it's only because I believe (and still do) in what this team is capable of, and felt there could have been so much more. I sincerely hope that the team finds encouragement rather than discouragement from what I've written here, and am still very much looking forward to your future projects.
Cheers for another IGMC finished!
Andy