Really cool game! I think the biggest improvement I'd love to see is something reminding me where I found each clue, since you end up with copious evidence but can't remember where you found it and hence who it implicates. I also found myself spamming clue+target pairs a lot since a lot of them seemed to have logic I didn't understand (Why can't I use the key to go to the place its initials suggest? Why does this clue mentioning two people have to be used on a specific one of them? Why does this clue that mentions a person have to be used on their storefront, not themselves? Also, why is this the combination to the safe?). Other than that (and failing to realise I could scroll the phone and restarting the game XD) it was a really fun experience!
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Glad to hear you liked the game despite all its weaknesses. Your questions are all valid. And a much more skilled version of myself would have done better. 2 weeks sound a lot, and I tried really hard every day to make progress. But it is so hard. There are several points worth mentioning:
- Software development takes a lot of time, next to a fulltime job it is also a question of enough energy
- Our team members were mostly 1st timers
- The topic was new to all of us
- Time difference between US and Europe is significant
- Aligning such different disciplines as story writing and development is hard
- Fully understanding what everyone has in mind is hard
- Bringing all these loose pieces together in a perfectly coherent game experience is hard
The solution to all of these challenges were many compromises - mostly coming down on my dev side. Tried my best to keep them as small as possible, and to create a somehow holistic and thinky experience. With much more time and much more communication I could have done better - for the time given I am proud of the result we achived.