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(+1)

One of the more interesting submissions to the jam, for sure. Considering that in reality job interviews ride the line between awfully stressful and hideous dull, making a game based around that concept that can keep the players attention was always going to be a difficult undertaking.

It took a little while to catch on that I was losing willpower as I was progressing. Perhaps that was the point. I did find a bit difficult to determine what exactly was causing it to drop - either resisting, going along or simply being a part of it.

I got up the eighth area, the mirror maze, before my rebellious, virtuous, repressed 68-year-old CHUMBA (he lost a year in cards) could not seem to progress past their fear of COOTIES. I did actually find a different mirror, containing the wish, but that didn't help me clear the area. I expect I was meant to go back and scrounge up some willpower from the previous areas? Instead, my man CHUMBA went back to the mirror repeatedly to stack 205 WILL like a boss. Hilariously, the wish in the mirror was OMNIPOTENCE.

I'm not sure blocking progress is the way to go here. My main drive to continue playing was the curiosity to see what the next area would be and after a while of clicking about the mirror room this started to dry up. The desire to go back to previous areas was pretty much zero, I felt I had seen enough. I was close to giving up before realising I could abuse the mirror for easy WILL.

I finished the game after that, granted something like Corporate Responsibility Manager, which I found hilarious. Very Terry Pratchett. I was a bit disappointed I couldn't refuse, especially with my extremely high WILL, though its not like I earned it :P.

Music was pretty good, though the occasional track began to grate just because the loops were so short. 

I'm going to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of AI art in general. But its better than nothing, certainly better than just grabbing stock assets and you clearly stated you were using it, even lampshading its absurdity throughout the game. I doesn't even look too bad, though Mr Beelzebub's fingers did stick out like, well, a sore thumb.

All in all, well done. Could see a lot of effort went into it.

(2 edits)

Thanks for the feedback!

The willpower mostly drops passively through interactions with Bob (because I hate job interviews) and there are some binary options where it drops if you go with the flow, while rebellion rises if you object. 

I think you're the first virtuous playtester I've seen! Most people seemed to go towards the evil route. Definitely not the first 68-70 year old tho ;) It sounds like the ability to customize a bit made things a little more fun.

The mirror maze was intended as a bit of a "final boss" but I do think it could be improved into something more exciting. The levels have different content when you revisit them (like the diner lets you cook food for willpower), but I think the maze itself kinda discourages you from leaving since you'll forget the pattern or lose your spot (hence adding in the secret rooms last minute to make it easy to beat your fear, though I should probably add a check for revisiting to stack :P). I need to do something more engaging and climatic with this level and will mull over what to do. Your feedback is really helpful here - I was on the fence about it myself and it's useful to hear that it leeched interest in continuing.

I'm glad you liked the ending title :D I was going for something mundane (hell is in the details) but due to time limits couldn't write different narratives for multiple endings. I definitely want to revisit that and maybe give a willpower check for turning Bob down. That feels like it would be a more impactful final use of willpower versus the check at the final mirror.

Re the AI art, I wanted to try out learning how it works and figured leaning into it and highlighting the weirdness is the way to go. The hands, as always, are a pitfall :P

Thanks for giving it such a thorough playthrough and doing such a helpful writeup!