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chris ronin2 years ago(+2)

very clever in presentation, progression and aesthetic. i really enjoyed the vibe and oddness of the characters, and the idea of having multiple characters to control for an adventure game is very interesting, though here it's only used to limited effect.

i really loved the idea of finding pages to the games 'instruction manual' within the game itself, and that also has strong potential as a mechanic in a very metroidvania way of discovering things you could probably have done all along.

my main nitpick with the game is the 'strong gating' you have in place, being unable to control interact with any of the characters before the game decides to give me permission. i teased out a sort of golden path, but it was really hard to figure out where the gates were -especially- as i tried to replay and get around the game's main bug. the main three characters at very least should be controllable from the word 'go'.

concerning the game's main bug: it is a shame, but having the characters disappear after what looks to be getting the note off the arcade without going through the dialogue, makes all the minor nitpicks that much worse. i tried 4 or 5 times to find a route that had the characters do what they needed to before triggering the bug, but it became too much. and then also the backpack seemed to be single use? i was hoping to carry all the characters around for their unique abilities, but could only use it on the one character, and then never again.

i also didn't understand the 'kissing' mechanic described in the manual. there certainly wasn't any ux feedback as to whether right clicking on any character did anything. they just seemed to wake up for dialog when the game let me.

again, these issues only really became issues because of that major bug and somehow understanding what to do put me in a worse spot as i now had to tease out that golden path again.

other ux nitpick is the dialog choices at the bottom of the screen were very hard to notice the first time, especially in the web browser. it does fit with the chosen aesthetic, but anything you can do to help draw attention to that area would be helpful.

once again, great concept, great aesthetic, loved the weirdness, and would love to see the mechanics of the characters more fully explored. great job!

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Carenalga2 years ago(+1)

Thank you very much for this very detailed comment.

I'm glad you liked the vibe of the game, its weirdness and presentation, and the "instructions manual" mechanic (but I can't take credit for the idea, though, because it's something I took from Tunic).

I greatly appreciate that despite all the bugs you tried more than once. I'll have to check the disappearing characters (because it should happen only to those you can control when you left a room (and there is still a lack of feedback on that action)). The backpack shouldn't be single-use, that's something I have to fix too.

I agree that the characters' abilities should be better exploited. Maybe I can include some of that in the post-jam version, but I feel that will be something I can better accomplish in a later game set in the same world. And the kissing mechanic is something I thought I would have the time to implement but couldn't in the end (and forgot to remove the thing from the manual). As for the "strong gating", I'll have to evaluate if the game experience is not greatly affected by allowing to control all the characters from the beginning, but it's an interesting analysis you make about it.

No one had mentioned the dialogue options, but I'll take your suggestions to make them more noticeable, and fit the aesthetics of everything else.

I'll try to play your game before the voting period ends.

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