Most of my comments are similar to others. Definitely need some more player direction at the beginning of the game. The visuals and mood are well suited for the atmosphere. The sound design is well done but hearing that same noise for every failed interaction reallllly lowers the atmosphere you've otherwise established. I think for improvements your focus should really be on teaching the player how to play, establishing the gameplay loop, and creating more responses from the game to let the player know they are interacting with it appropriately. Overall, its a very ambitious work and has a lot of positives, but the experience for me was fairly frustrating.
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Hey Hankworx!
Totally agree with you! It is quite a frustrating experience without any of the player feedback. Will be my first priority once the Jam ends to get all of that implemented so there is actually an advanceable gameplay loop.
Also, totally agree on the sounds. It's the door locked sound which was just there because a lot of the code for interactables is reused. There are sounds already in-engine that just need to be linked up properly. Going to be one of the first things implemented once the jam is complete.
Aside from that, it will definitely get better. It was quite a lot to take on for a Jam, let alone my first Jam or game in general. More great things to come in the future :) just collecting all the feedback and filing it into a Trello board so I can sort my top priorities.
Thanks again for playing Esoterica in its current state!