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Hi there, I just recently played through New Message and wanted to share some of my thoughts on it here. With these “mini-reviews” I tend to go over some of the things I liked about the game, some things I didn’t, and any bugs I might have come across throughout my play time.

I’ll first go over some things I liked. The visuals are excellent, at first, I wasn’t too sure about the low-res style with this game, but as it progressed it really started to grow on me, and became a defining feature for the game, it was used in such a way that made things even creepier. An example of this would be when walking down an alleyway, there’s what appears to be a big blob of pixels stuck to a wall and as you approach it you begin to see more details of it, it begins to move really fast, scampering off before you can get a real good look at it, but you know right away that something isn’t right. The sound design was another aspect of the game that was done phenomenally, the buzzing of the phone gave me shudders every time it went off, and there’s a particular scene that actually made me jump in my seat (something that doesn’t happen often), all thanks to the way the sounds and music are used throughout the experience. Both of these key points lead up to the final, and that’s that the game has a wonderful sense of atmosphere to it, the enemies are constantly watching you from the darkness and if you look hard enough at times you can see them, combine that with the sounds, music, and low-res visual style and you have an incredibly atmospheric horror game on your hands. The multiple endings are also a really nice touch, and aren’t blatantly obvious to the player, you have to think about what action could lead to a different outcome.

There’s only one thing I can point to throughout the whole experience and say “I didn’t like that.” And that’s with the interaction mechanic. Having the interactions tied in with the camera zooming in just feels awkward at times, especially with gates and doors. I would consider this to be a very minor gripe, that never really impacted my overall enjoyment of the game, just a minor annoyance at times.

I’m happy to report that I didn’t run into any bugs throughout my play time, the game seems very well polished.

This is definitely a game I would recommend for people to try, and that’s fairly rare for me these days, especially on itchio. The game has a high degree of polish to it, signaling that the developers really care about delivering their game to the players in the best way they possibly can. The game isn’t half-assed by any means, despite being made in roughly two weeks. It looks good, sounds fantastic and has an overall tense and creepy atmosphere to it that drives the player forward. Fantastic job with this game.

I made a short let's play of my time with game, linked above.

Cheers and best wishes,

Killjoy

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Wow. We have no words to express how happy we feel with your review. Thank you a lot for taking the time to do this!

I know exactly how you feel in regards to most horror games these days, and we did our best not to be "just another one". Comments like yours makes us feel immensely accomplished and filled with energy and ideas for more. We're definitely taking note of the feedback on the interaction system, and we're very sorry we couldn't make it work well with the game. Thankfully, it didn't seem to harm the experience too much.

Thank you again for the support! Cheers and best wishes!!

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Thank you for taking the time and effort to make a game worthy of such praise, and for responding to me. I just try to provide whatever feedback I can. You definitely succeeded in standing out to me, and I believe you have a really good shot at winning the TV Game Jam. You don't have to apologize for my one and only complaint, what I find as a minor annoyance or inconvenience others might not bat an eyelash at, it's very subjective based. You've caught mine, and I'll assume a lot of others attention with this game, and I'm quite curious to see what project you tackle next.

You definitely have my interest and support. 

Thanks again for responding, and for making a game that stands out among the rest, it was a pleasure to play.