I enjoyed this entry in general. Highlight is the puzzle design coupled with the trivia. There was only one question that in my opinion lent itself to multiple interpretations, and that's the wall colour one. The fact that there is a Green paint receipt under a box, doesn't infer that the guy wanted to paint the walls green and then changed his mind. It just means he bought green paint. So I answered that incorrectly. It was my only incorrect answer. Anyway, puzzles were high quality and interesting. One could argue that the cultural puzzles are dangerous. Friday the 13th isn't necessarily a cursed day for some cultures. 42 isn't the meaning of life, unless you've seen the film or care about inane memes. Careful when you decide on these hints. You may want to go with self contained information instead.
I had trouble getting into the game, because of the initial narrative. The try hard humour ground my gears and I was really close to quitting. Generally speaking, it's very difficult to write compelling narrative and dialogue, especially in games, where interaction changes perspectives. For instance, I immediately pressed Shift on the comms, and the AI still said "haha, I've fooled you". Haha you haven't. You're missing a condition to check if Shift was my first input when interacting with you. The dialogue improves in quality as the game continues. When the AI acts more mature, arguably. My general suggestion in this area, reduce humour, remove smug / sarcastic character (very cheap form of humour), and focus on what you are trying to convey. Then decide the best possible character archetype to do so. If your choice is smug and sarcastic, fair enough, but I find it to be unoriginal as it's very common. My interpretation is that it's easier to write a smug character that reveals to have some depth, then a deep character that reveals to have more depth, if that makes sense.
Graphics are pretty decent, though rough in places. I think the decision to start with the character looking up is a bad idea, I thought I was faceless at first. I like to see my character's face to identify with him. Also, you have pixel density problems. For instance, there is a pressure plate that gigantic in the second to last room. That looks quite ugly.
The only blunder in the puzzle design was the last pressure plates in the second to last room. They break convention. This violates the sixth Nielsen's heuristic (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/). You should have designed different graphics for this type of pressure plate.
I don't dig the locomotion controls. Basically, the character moves by one unit where you go, but it's inconsistent. This created problems in the second to last room, where there is a box very close to a laser and you need to place yourself between laser and box to push it. I have no idea why you chose to move this way, but you did. Cost me 1 unnecessary death.
The music is strange. You have 2 tracks I believe, and they play whenever they feel like playing. So there are rooms that are devoid of music, rooms with it. Odd. I like the songs, I think they fit the mood, but the implementation is poor.
Overall, a very enjoyable entry. One of my favourites. I would put it in the hall of fame file I have, were it not for the amount of fluff in the dialogue. Good show.
Viewing post in Differentiation game jam comments
Wow, thanks a lot for your in-depth criticism!
For the green paint, I hadnt had a comment about that until yesterday when my dad tried it so you're not the only one. The original statement could have been changed slightly.
For cultural based hints I know what you mean for 42 and 13 but they are two pieces of trivia that you could easily look up, and even though Friday the 13th isnt cursed in every culture I was more refering the movie than the actual superstition. As for 42 it definitely can be dangerous but it is the very first thing that appears when searching for the meaning of life. Then again, a short game like this one shouldnt require you to search things up.
Im interested by your view on smug humor because Ive never heard anyone say that before but I definitely see what you're getting at: it is overdone and an easy way to go for humor. I wouldnt say that we went for it for that reason though: Im sarcastic by nature (as are many people in this jam) and most of all I did take inspiration for this AI. Ive been recently reading The Dark Tower for the first time, and the AI's character (for all before the last room) was partially inspired by Blaine the Mono. You can see that in how he switches between slang and formal every so often. Probably too subtle but I definitely did not go for a cheap character. But interesting critic, Ive never looked at things this way.
For graphics quality, I personally am of the opinion that it fits the game but if you want to talk about it more you can contact the artist. For pixel perfectness it is definitely ugly in the last scene but I made that level design decision on the last day when I made that last puzzle level so we didnt have much time to make a dofferent graphic for a bigger switch.
Now, I am not familiar with sixth Nielsen heuristic but I can understand what you mean from context: I felt the same way when playtesting on the last day but some things were simply more urgent to fix and I never ended up talking about it with the artist.
I didn't notice the crappy movement because I was used to it until I saw people playtest it and complain, but that was after submission... It's my fault for using GetAxisRaw()...
Im glad you like the two music tracks. The playing randomness was done on purpose, under request of the artist that didnt want the music to be too important during levels and instead be kind of like Minecraft music (pccasionally playing). The effect would probably be more present if there were more levels, more tracks, and actual fade outs at the end of the tracks (and maybe fade ins).
Shame it didn't make it to your hall of fame, but Im glad you liked it anyways, and that you spent time writing this. Thanks a bunch! I have a long list of games to rate but Il going to add yours to it.
Brilliant response. I've linked you a short article about the heuristics in the previous response. It's usually applied to software outside of games, but it's a great short few commandments to go by when it comes to usability. Just give it a read, and remember it when you design interactions.
As for the smug humour, I may have come across as meaning to say that your game does it constantly. That's not the case. It's somewhat present. And I believe I mentioned that your character (the AI that is), grows over time. In the simplest of terms, the issue is this. Permanently sarcastic characters are very popular nowadays. I'm not sure why. They are frequently irritating. This tends to lead to a cast made primarily of smart-arses. This happens in films, sit coms, and games as well, by osmosis. I'm not a guy that digs narratives very much in general, so take this feedback with a pinch of salt, but, whenever I write characters, I like to give them distinct personality traits. I then observe if the traits are matched as I write their lines. Sarcasm is a very cheap and easy to reach form of comedy. I suspect this is why it's as popular as it is. Having every character sound the same is the issue. Now, in the environment of your game's this cannot happen. You only have one character. But every time your character behaves like Glados would, it's very in your face. Glados is in fact a great example of a character that the world loves, and I find rather irritating. Another excellent example of this phenomenon is the whole cast in Borderlands 2 (2 specifically).
I can bang on about this for a while, but I suspect you understand exactly what I mean. So... :)
Yeah I know what you mean. It was never a form of humor I found irritating but I see what you're getting at and I definitely agree with you. I dont make all my characters sarcastic but when it comes to narrator like entities (like L-13), I do tend to steer towards that direction which isnt best. And of course, considering the idea for this game was greatly inspired from portal, it is true that I copy Glados' behavior here and there. Im working on a bigger game where there'll be a lot lot more characters so that problem won't show up but yeah, I get you.