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Hey thanks for playing! Glad you liked it!

This was a pretty cool short experience! The aesthetics, voice acting, and sound design are really good. Definitely a creepy vibe. I really liked the addition of being able to turn around, it really increases the stress since it almost implies something could be behind you.

Thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed the voice acting :)

This was a pretty fun and interesting game, happy to say I got out without getting caught. I think the atmosphere is pretty good and I like the sound effects as the monster approaches. The goal of the game is straightforward which I think works well for this. I liked that you could find pills to increase the time until getting caught. I really liked that the monster apparently steals your stuff and doesn't make you restart (which I realized after playing by reading other comments).

It's cool that you created a random level generator! I will say it's pretty tricky to navigate as the halls and rooms can start to look samey. On one hand I sort of like that since it's easier to get lost and increases tension/horror. On the other hand, it can start to become a bit frustrating. Maybe in an update at least a few more notable landmarks can be added to the random generation to help with navigation just a bit. That and maybe making it just a bit more believable as a space with some more props or something.

Overall great submission, good job!

awesome, thanks! Playing yours now :)

Thanks for giving it another chance! Really glad you liked the fight with the monster and the story/voice acting!
Haha how could we forget a name as iconic as Exploding Donkey?

As for the disappearing objects bug mentioned, did you download the most recent version or play the version you previously downloaded? I believe that was fixed in the most recent update (during the timeframe when bugfixes were allowed).

Thanks so much for taking the time to play again and give us some great feedback :)

Oh sorry I missed your post in our submission page. Looks like you got stuck after getting the crowbar. If you're interested in trying again, just go back up the road and you'll see a boarded up mine, then just press E while looking at the planks to pry them off

But anyways, I'll go ahead and download yours now

Thanks for checking it out! We appreciate the feedback :)

Haha awesome! That’s a great compliment :)

My cousin made the shaders and I’m sure it’ll make his day to hear his work really paid off!

Glad you enjoyed the fight! We’d love to spend some time after the jam to polish it further.

We’re also planning to add some interaction prompts and other ways of increasing clarity to help guide the player.

Thanks for playing and providing great feedback!

Thanks for playing and the positive feedback! Glad you enjoyed it!

Wow this game is truly incredible!! 10/10, by far my favorite game I've played so far from this jam.
Aesthetics are top notch. The game feels really good to play. The models, textures, everything looks fantastic. This is also one of the few actually scary games I've played from the jam. The premise is great, love the boss. The cutout sprite style contrasting with the 3D environment is well done and actually pretty interesting. The sounds for the dialogue are weird and unsettling, in a good way. The sprites of the spirits are pretty freaky. The sounds the spirits make really sell the horror. Also that ending haha!

The first time I tried it, I didn't realize spirits spawn and was just staring at the map after scanning, thinking "seriously? Now I have to just walk back? There's no fast travel? Okay let's see how to get back" and then I died without realized what happened. So I was initially frustrated and thought it was bad gameplay with a pretty appearance. Thankfully I gave it another shot. Perhaps there's a way to make the first spirit more obvious before it has a chance of killing the player? But idk, maybe my experience is super rare because I had my nose up against the map haha

The only thing I question is why would I ever try to scan at the farthest areas of the map? It seems like that's just making it harder on yourself because the player now has to survive longer? Unless the required number of spirits is all that's on the map? I admit I only played through once after my unfortunate death, so I'm really not sure.

This game is super inspiring! Congrats to the team, you all did amazing! :)

I really liked the environment, it had a great color scheme and felt very inviting at the start, but the change in lighting helped bring out the isolated vibes. The visuals (especially outside) are the strongest area this game has going for it in it's current state.

I think the game is mostly lacking in clarity. I feel like the setting and characters were underdeveloped and the pipe scanning mechanic could be explained better to avoid confusion. The subtitles often disappeared quickly and there wasn't really a way to check your objective as far as I could tell, so I had to restart right at the beginning because I didn't read or hear in time what to do after picking up the scanner. I think an interact prompt on the pipes would be great to add.

The corrosion scanning mechanic is a pretty cool idea. I think it needs to provide more feedback for the player though. It mentioned a score of 1 being perfect and whatnot, but I didn't notice where a score was being displayed? It was maybe a little unclear if my scan was acceptable or wasting too much material. It would be cool to see how it would get developed further if this game gets future updates.

Like others have mentioned, the table and shelves do not have collision. I'll also point out that the scale on certain things seems pretty off. The lockers seem tiny and Mark seems giant, towering over the player like we're a child. Oh also I noticed some sideways grass on the walls of building D haha.

Some of the jump scares sound like an electric guitar which I found a little funny. The jump scare in building D where I think boxes get knocked over or something got me though, that one was pretty good! I also found it pretty eerie seeing the monster looking at you from the windows in building D, I liked that. It would be really cool if the head slightly turned to look at you as you walk below it.

I think you did a good job at raising the tension between each task. The interiors felt uncomfortable and outside felt less and less inviting. I liked the plot twist, though I found Mark's death a bit comical. Having to run from the monster was pretty fun. Not sure if you're doomed or can actually escape, but I died and I really liked the ending.

Overall, it was pretty enjoyable :) good job!

Thanks so much for the positive feedback! We really appreciate it and we’re glad you enjoyed our game! We’ll see what we can do about that flashlight and hopefully polish that up in an update :)

You’re welcome! And totally fair to wait on bug fixing after the jam.

Hmm yeah maybe a phone or something in the truck that can be used to call a tow truck would work. Or maybe just allow reloading to the previous depot instead of restarting the whole thing?

Yeah I think you did a great job at capturing that. I admit I wanted to listen to the podcast but the music was a bop haha maybe I just wanted the music to keep the chill vibe and avoid getting creeped out by the podcast, idk but maybe I’ll replay it to just listen to that and learn the lore.

Here’s ours, hope you have fun! :) I’ll play yours asap!

https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2024/rate/3054228

Played, rated, and left feedback for your game on the submission page!

This was pretty great, so congrats to the team!
The aesthetics are really fantastic. I've always loved how liminal and lonely ps1 games are and I think this game captured that perfectly.

Sorry if this feedback is a bit lengthy, but I saw you were putting tons of time into reviews of other people's games so I figured I'd return the favor for you :)

I found the start a bit confusing. The manager says to detach the trailer to his left (which is funny because to his left is a wall, the trailer is actually to his right. Maybe consider changing that text to say the correct direction) but it wasn't really made clear that I had to drive it into the green square. Of course I figured it out, but I still think it could be explained a bit better.

I really think the issue with not being able to click on attaching/detaching should have been fixed during the bugfix grace period so I'm a little bummed to see that still being so finicky. I'd definitely love to see that get sorted out after the voting period.

Reversing is pretty tough to be honest, I don't love how the trailer turns so easily even when going straight back. But overall I think the driving feels pretty good. I eventually got pretty good at it, picking up trailers and dropping them off without having to readjust my parking. I will say I sort of wish the gameplay loop was a bit shorter, where you can deliver and then immediately pickup the next load at the same place, then drive to the next one. Oh and it honestly stressed me out a bit when leaving a depot trying to remember which way I entered so I wouldn't go back the way I came, but with how the map generates around you idk if it matters which direction I go.

The last thing I'll point out as room for improvement is bugs/getting stuck. There was a couple times I had to restart because I flipped the truck or got it stuck. Unfortunately, on the very last time picking up a trailer, I missed, got sandwiched between 2 trailers and got the truck completely stuck :( due to the length of the game I'm not sure if I'll replay to the end yet or not. I did experience a super funny bug when I flipped the truck. I got out of the flipped truck and the collision launched me into space haha oh and also I think it's hilarious that you can push the manager around.

On to the actual driving, wow you guys really captured a vibe and I love it. Maybe I'm the odd man out but I kinda love driving at night during winter, listening to music and watching the snow hit the windshield. It's almost meditative. On the other hand, I've always been a bit creeped out by it too though, like what if I see something on the side of the road or whatever. Seriously cannot compliment the core gameplay enough. Had a great time with the experience.

I must not be a horror protagonist because I never got out of my truck unless I had to haha totally the "I just work here" attitude. I'm sure I missed out on some creepy stuff in the towns and buildings you can explore on foot, but I'm just trying to make some money, ya know? haha but I did pick up on some stuff that did get the imagination going. Obviously saw the bloody body bags hanging and the bodies on the ground near the crosses. That paired with the blood transfusion delivery commercials got me wondering "what exactly am I transporting?". But that's about as far as the horror went for my playthrough.

If you're interested in increasing the horror elements in the future: due to how the player passes through the same environments multiple times, you could incorporate some things that change each time you drive by, almost like a PT experience with their looping hallway. Idk maybe something to consider that could be interesting?

TLDR: overall really cool experience, capturing winter driving so perfectly. Sad to see that it's so easy to get stuck. Nice to see little spooky things you drive by, but mostly chill. Great work!

Huge props to the artist(s?) behind this game! The aesthetics are fantastic! I'm a fan of the turn based gameplay and I think it's a really cool idea to Frankenstein together a team of monsters and how that affects their stats, movement and attack options. Really impressed with this game and I love how it captured that spooky cute vibe (a personal favorite aesthetic)

I was a little confused by parts of the UI, which I read in a different comment was one of the last things added, so I understand it's not going to be perfect :) but here's where I got caught up in case you plan on updating things after the jam:
so after I placed all the parts, I wasn't sure if the create button would solidify my creation or create a random monster. And then once it was created and the monster icon was above the create button, I didn't know if I should leave it there or drag it to the bottom. I also wasn't aware I needed 3 monsters until going to the next screen and had to go back, so perhaps prevent the player from leaving the monster creation screen until they have the minimum and ideally make it more clear, such as making the first 3 monster boxes a different color etc.

As for actual gameplay, I think the addition of VFX for hitting enemies would go a long way. I wasn't sure if missing attacks was a thing, so I kept checking enemy health to see if I hit and actually dealt damage. I think what speed does could be clarified a bit, I assume it's initiative but it could be accuracy?

All in all pretty fun experience and I hope your team continues working on this because I see a lot of potential :)

Played and rated your game! It was fun :)

Thanks for playing! Thanks for the feedback! We’re going to try to improve on it after the jam, hopefully we can fix the issues you encountered.

Thanks for taking the time to review our game :) Hope you have fun!
https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2024/rate/3054228

Thanks for the feedback! We’ll see if we can improve that after the voting period ends :)

Here’s ours: https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2024/rate/3054228#post-1123394

Happy to play and rate yours too, planning to play through tonight :)

Here’s ours: https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2024/rate/3054228#post-1123394

Planning to play and rate yours as well later tonight :)

Thanks for offering to rate! Here’s our game: https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2024/rate/3054228#post-11233947

I’m hoping to hop on tonight and play/rate your game :)

Achieving RE4 vibes is a huge compliment, thanks!

And thanks for letting us know about performance issues on older machines. We’re planning an update after the voting period, so we can maybe look into adding options to make it more playable on older machines.

But we’re glad you enjoyed the part of it you got to experience!

Thanks for checking it out and leaving some feedback! We’re planning to update the game once the voting period ends to help clarify things :)

Thanks for playing and providing us with some great feedback!

We’ll take your point about the crosshair into consideration and possibly add that in an update after the voting period ends :)

We’re also planning to improve clarity on what to do and where to go as well, so hopefully that won’t be an issue anymore once we update the game.

We really appreciate the compliments!

thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for playing and really glad you enjoyed it! Sorry you were experiencing frame drops :(

Also thanks for replaying it, hopefully went smoothly the second playthrough. Did you post your recording somewhere? We'd love to check it out.

We really appreciate the feedback. We're planning to update the game after the voting period ends, and that cutscene is on our list of things we want to touch up :)

Thanks a ton for checking our game out! We really appreciate the kind words and we're super glad you enjoyed the experience.

Thanks for playing! :)
I'm happy to hear you felt like the dialogue was close to what you were thinking as a player. I'm glad that you liked the level and liked all those little details (we were very close to not being able to add them due to time constraints haha).

Awesome to hear you enjoyed the finale. Sorry you encountered that bug in the fight. We're planning to fix up that issue and hopefully going to clear up any confusion during the intro cutscene. Thanks for the great feedback, we really appreciate it!

Thanks for playing and glad you liked it! We really appreciate the feedback!

I designed the level layout and order of progression so I’m happy to hear you liked that part and noticed the use of valves :)

I’ll pass the compliments on to the team, they really made it all come together!

of course, happy to provide feedback :)

Okay I tested one last time and was able to turn left and right. So it’s a sensitivity issue after all. If it’s not perfectly left or right it won’t turn. You may have already fixed this, but just letting you know. If you still think it would be helpful I’m using a wired Xbox one controller. I think what lead me to think it wasn’t was mainly that I would trigger the turn animation but not actually turn. Maybe the animation and turning require different values to trigger? With the animation being slightly more lenient?

Haha yeah it was a little spooky to have the game drop files, open browser pages, and even mimic computer error pop ups. Loved that! Reminded me a bit of how Eternal Darkness would mess with the player by turning down the tv volume or making it look like the game deleted your save files.

Very cool! Glad to hear you’ll keep working on it, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on it. I think it’s got great potential!

We updated our build a bit ago to fix some bugs so I hope you were able to play the newest version! Hope you enjoyed it :) looking forward to hearing what you thought of it

Like others have said, the art is really great! I especially like the cow sprites. Running from a monster in a maze is always a great source of tension. My favorite part of my playthrough: there was a loop in the maze and I made a turn only to find the monster and gone the opposite way and was right in front of me! Definitely an "oh shit" moment haha

I did notice two things that could maybe be fixed: you can press escape to close the game while playing, but can't seem to press escape in the menu. It would be nice to be able to that in the menu. The other thing: I died in my first attempt, but after pressing play again the cows were already in the positions they enter after you feed/water them and I couldn't seem to interact with them at all so I had to restart to try again. Oh I guess one last thing, it seemed sort of difficult to avoid damage when the monster first spawns since there's only 1 exit from the barn. I guess you've just gotta juke it so maybe it's a skill issue haha

Overall it's a fun experience! 10/10 would feed cowbor again ;P

Okay finished the game. 10/10 would recommend :)

First of all, thank you for helping me get out of the house! I didn't expect I could smash giant crates with the kick haha I was trying to kick out the boarded up windows and everything else apparently.

I played on keyboard this time so I could avoid any issues. For the controller, I'm not sure it was user error (not holding the stick directly left) or a sensitivity issue. It's possible, but the reason I think it was maybe a bug is because the character was entering the turning animation which meant the game was registering the turn, but the character wasn't turning. Anyways, happy to say that besides the one controller issue I had, I don't think I encountered another technical issue.

I don't want to spoil too much about the story for others who might read this, but I found the meta game elements really cool and I love how you can read the notes outside of the game to dive deeper into the story. I haven't analyzed the audio yet (though I plan to when I get time) so I'm sure I'm missing out on some cool revelations or spooky stuff, but I'm glad that the story is pretty understandable even with just the notes.

The sound design is also quite good and the voice acting isn't bad. I especially liked hearing the whispering every now and then. Made me question a few times if a cultist was just around the corner.

The gameplay is also pretty fun. I'm impressed with the menus and inventory system. I like that you let the player freely look around, that's something I always wish I could do in games with static cameras, just to explore the environment more.

I would've liked the gameplay to be more scary, but I think this game touches on other facets of horror that help make up for that. The only part of the game that I felt wasn't as fun is the maze.

All in all, great job on this game! Really enjoyed the experience. Rated and I hope you'd be willing to check out our game too :)

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed the experience!

thanks again for checking it out! I'll return the favor :)

Here’s ours, and we’d be happy to rate yours too!

https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2024/rate/3054228

Thanks for offering to rate! Here’s ours and we’d be happy to rate your submission as well! https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2024/rate/3054228