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(+1)

I tried to get into it, but really quickly grew more bored than my character seemed to be, with nothing much seeming to happen. I mean, eventually there’s a few creepy things and writing on the walls and such, but I couldn’t figure out how to advance the plot and it seemed to come far too slowly. It was also confusing that reading seemed to do nothing but increase my boredom? After running myself to exhaustion several days in a row a giant eyeball killed me and gave me sweet, sweet relief. Was that the intended loop or did I miss something? I don’t have it in me to play it again, but if there was a video walkthrough or something I would totally give it a watch on 3x speed to see what happens cause I was really curious where things were going!

I guess there’s a major genre mismatch for me personally here, I’m both an admittedly impatient ADHDer and I think it’s basically impossible for media to actually scare me. I think in general the atmosphere and ideas were pretty solid, I just ran out of any incentive to actually care to keep my character alive. “I never was alive”, why am I obeying what the voice is telling me? The game itself is partially what convinced me to stop trying to keep my health up. Reading your devlog I guess I very much did not actually do the expected thing 😅 The hand that came out of the screen happened so quickly I didn’t even realize I could dodge it, same with the eye laser, which spawned after I relaxed on the couch and had killed me within seconds, with no indication it was doing anything dangerous.

I’ve gone back and tried listening to the song for clues, and as someone who has trouble understanding lyrics already they seemed pretty covered up by the instrumentals. Trying my hardest to understand, all I know is either do or don’t push the button? which of the buttons? or did they say something about a bucket? It’s cool knowing the effort you put in to the sound and music. If you ever upgrade to Komplete 14 (or 13 i guess), Noire piano might be really fun to play around with for weird creepy atmospheric piano effects.

I hope this doesn’t come across as overly negative, ultimately it’s nitpicks and a desire for slightly faster pacing. It’s obvious the effort and care that was put into this and I think it’s definitely something to be proud of 🎉

(+1)

I think you're 100% right in that things drag on a bit too long, I have combined ADHD as well so in hindsight after all the pride from having a finished game has worn off that was the first thing that I noticed too. Things only really start happening from day three on and I think if I update the game after the jam I would probably cut day two altogether and skip to day three. I'd also make the minutes go by faster. It also doesn't help that I have a RNG spawner that decides whether or not you just get a random sound event or if it spawns an enemy. So some playthroughs end up having no monsters at all. Also something I would change to be a bit more deliberate so there aren't as many downtimes.

Reading by the way only reduces your boredom early on, the more you read the same book the more boring it gets over time and at some point it'll make you more bored. I figured that's how it would work irl so I implemented it that way. Kinda to give the player something they can use early on but not rely on the longer the game goes.

The intended gameplay loop is for you to earn money, take care of your needs, avoid the monsters and then survive to day 7. I originally planned for people to just keep on dying and observing which activities do what and which stats interact with other stats. Like hunger and thirst will decrease your energy and health if you let it get too low, boredom will make you hungry and thirsty faster, exercising will make you smelly, etc. Slowly finding out how to balance all the stats so that you can survive till the end. My testers were able to survive after a few attempts but I get that it's frustrating to learn especially early on.

The hand is just a thing you need to learn from. If you stand far enough away from the PC while interacting with it, it isn't able to hurt you. That whole thing with the eye being able to spawn and attack you while you're doing an activity is an oversight honestly. It never happened during the tests because of the random nature of its spawn. Usually it gives you just enough time to break eye contact if you react fast enough. As soon as the laser charge sound starts you got four seconds before it fires and it takes about ten seconds for it to slurp back up into the ceiling again which is when you're safe. I think in hindsight I would also make it so that the charge up charges down when you break eye contact instead of just pausing and resuming, because that's also one major complaint about the eye I've been hearing these past days.

Regarding the secret ending, there have been some other hints I've hidden within the game  (especially during the 6th day) that would be able to point you to it because some of my testers also weren't able to understand the lyrics, which I fully blame that radio effect for (definitely not my shoddy mixing skills lol). I've been meaning to upgrade to one of the newer Komplete's but money is tight so I've been doing what I can with Komplete 10. When I get around to it I'll definitely check out Noire Piano, thank you!

It doesn't come off as negative at all, I'm really grateful that you took the time to write all of your criticism out! A lot of things I've already noticed myself after the jam because hindsight is always 20/20 but you made some really good points and I very much appreciate it! I'll probably try to fix these things once the jam is over. Thank you again for this detailled comment! <3

Yeah having some rng mitigation makes some sense. It doesn’t seem like the type of experience where replayability is important anyway, which is the big plus of randomization (besides not having to commit to something, pacing wise). Since you’re already effectively toying with player’s patience to some extent, getting that pacing just right seems like something to prioritize.

I didn’t actually have trouble keeping my stats up, the menu screen was very clear, it was simply a combination of “what can advance to the next day the fastest” and amusing myself with the idea of running myself to death, the natural reaction to being in a situation like that :P I also have to admit I wasn’t 100% sure the eye was an enemy, I walked up to it and hit E to see if maybe it was the friend who was leaving me clues and stuff.

I dunno if the Komplete 14 upgrade is worth it, but I think their 50% off summer sale should be coming up pretty soon. Maybe use some prize money from this to go for it? 😀 I definitely have hoarded more VSTs than I can make use of lol

If you do update this I definitely would check it out again!