Hey, I have played until the part where the Bell shows up. I'm not sure it's the end, but I can't enter the door next to it, so that's where I quit.
Suggestions of things I think you can improve:
- Dialogue during the intro scene is way too fast. It should pause after each character's line and wait for player input, like visual novels and RPG games do.
- When a companion is off-screen, you could show an icon that looks like their head (maybe inside a white speech bubble, since your backgrounds are very colorful). I'm not sure the astrolabe will be intuitive to most players.
- Making the companion follow you in that part with the swimming pool and ladder was really difficult to me. Having to care about their oxygen made me even more nervous. Are you sure you want this system with your companions? It seems like your game would benefit from a system like "The Lost Vikings" had, where you control multiple characters, only one at a time. Check it out in case you don't know the game.
Things I really enjoyed: (!)
- Swimming. The part with the soccer ball. The part with the fishing rod. Those were all fun, but you didn't use them much. Killing the lizard with the knife also felt good, despite the crazy low range.
- The surreal visuals and strange characters is something I dig, makes the experience more unique.
Viewing post in Project Nortubel (Still WIP) jam comments
The green door requires both characters, as stated in a yellow book from the first level.
* I still can't into proper "slideshow" cutscene/dialogue stuff so slowing down the animation of the cutscene is the least I can do.
* Maybe I could use an icon of their heads. I'd say the bigger issue is how it's not actually leaning to the border of the green but again, too ambitious for my first game.
* I've heard of Lost Vikings. Least I can do is make later levels handle the core gameplay better. The idea here was to press Z to attach the kid to the ladder after he swims high enough to reach it.
* The "surreal" visuals may or may not be intentional because my art skills are weak and when I imagine my characters/settings, they don't look like how they actually do in my stuff. After all, i still haven't added shaded to the characters in the cutscene.
But thanks for your and the others' comments.
I may still need to figure out things before adding new levels and content.