Post by Fist Full of Shrimp in Dark Panic! VR jam comments

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That was just a pure and fantastic experience. The entire thing felt so polished and complete. where to start?

Accessibility was terrific even down to a difficulty and jump scare setting. This gives everyone a chance to play your game. I do think offering a standing option would have been nice, but not entirely necessary.
The jump scares were terrific. You had me saying "Oh F#*k Off!!" a few times 🤣
Multiple game mechanics that were polished. You really knew how to scope this game and I think it allowed you to really polish every bit.
Tutorial was as smooth as butter. It's the right amount of tutorial and game progression that makes the player feel like they aren't just reading a rule book.
Lighting and material work was top notch. Let me know when you start doing tutorials on it because I'm ready to watch!

Some Notes: The key puzzle was great, but there were a few times that it would get stuck, which caused it constantly go into the other mini-games.

Outside of that, this is just an amazing entry. Thank you so much for participating!

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IanLindsey1 year ago (1 edit)

Firstly, I'm glad I made you say 'oh F#*k off!' a few times - forget the whole Jam thing, that was my overall goal really :)

Thanks very much for the feedback! Yeah, it was a pretty intense 5-day, I've taken time-lapse videos of the whole process in the devlog section if you want to see how it was made - Dark Panic! 5-Day Halloween Game Jam Dev Log - Dark Panic! by IanLindsey (itch.io)

It's my 2nd Jam, so I see how time is a massive factor - therefore it made sense to make one main bit, then have a selection of 'dark' mini-games to add to it, that way they can be added or removed given the time... Actually I had 5 in mind originally, but I'd rather have 2 polished playable balanced ones than 5 unplayable ones - they do change depending on the level of difficulty too, so they needed extra play testing time to balance all that...

Actually, I might add the other 3 one day :)

As for the lighting & materials, you're in luck! I've already made a kinda tutorial/dev log about my process - it's on something called YouTube:

As for the standing thing - you're absolutely right of course, and it was something that became apparent near the end of the Jam.

I originally planned to make a seated experience, so I started out doing that, put the code in, modelled the environment yadda, yadda - but then as it became more playable, it was clear that it also worked as a standing game too. However, by that point I'd modelled the environment too short and there wasn't enough time to go back and adjust everything, so in the end I opted for that height adjust option - which kinda still works, but ultimately given another day or so I would have just made the environment taller to fit and made it cater for both.

Thanks for playing & glad to be part of the Jam!

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