itch.io

Hah, I spent all this time avoiding the walls too because it’s so conditioned! The next thing I should drop in is a physics engine, though I’ve yet to pick one! Thanks for the kind words too about the devlog/design stuff I shared! <3

postmortem notes!

This was the first time I played a RenPy game so I was excited to see what it was like! I have a fondness for IF in text form, but have not played many (if any?) visual novels!

What struck me initially was the pacing that text scrolled, paced bit by bit, put me in a mood. The retro and grainy presentation and art style married with the writing very quickly established myself in the position of the unnamed character. I found the writing reflecting similar experiences that I’ve had as a freelancer and sometimes writer, feeling a bit disconnected from the people around me, so I become more sucked into the text itself as it appeared rather than the changes in the artwork. I noted that the characters changed, but usually after the fact. My attention was really on the teletype effect of the test, eagerly waiting to see what next part of the story would reveal itself, so I could see where it would go.

I find myself haunted a bit by the unresolved play I had (there was a bug?) so I didn’t play to completion. There is a deliciousness, though, in the unresolved mystery of WHO WAS THIS CHARACTER? WHY IS THE SRI-SHAPED CAT HEADPHONE GIRL MEAN AT FIRST? And of course the nature of the world as my understanding evolves.

This is a very interesting style of writing that I’d like to try sometime myself; I find myself reacting to my experience with the game primarily as a writer, not a video gamer, and that’s a super interesting response to have. Some of my favorite stories from childhood (pre-Disney Winnie the Pooh, for example) have these wonderful illustrations that never are incorporated into the text themselves, and I find the idea that this could happen very exciting! Looking forward to seeing how this develops!

I was impressed by the overall finished cohesiveness of the game, and that it was put together for running on multiple platforms. This is my first real experience even playing a game made with Godot, and one made by Sam also, so that was an extra bonus!

I’m generally not drawn to downhill racers that require steering with a controller, but I gave this a shot. One thing I had trouble training myself from doing was pressing a button to START the run; this made my penguin jump immediately. Moving the stick to start moving without any warning kept happening to me. I don’t know if this is a convention in racers these days that I am unaware of, since I don’t play these types of games myself so take with a grain of salt.

The music and voicing added a LOT to the feeling of the game, as well as the frenetic feeling from racing very quickly down a slope. I found it challenging to master the “english” of the jump timing and jump steering, as it “felt” to me like there was a frame sync issue with when I pressed the button and when I jumped being inconsistent with where I thought the edge was. I also found it challenging to determine the edges of cliffs in the middle of the slide path, but thought it was cool that there was generally nothing that stopped your momentum once you start sliding uninhibitedly! I had originally avoided slopes that looks like they went UPWARD expecting them to be problems, but I saw other people using them for better route jumping.

I liked the concept of having more and more penguins on the screen! Aesthetically, though, I think the extreme wide angle presentation of them made it hard to parse what was happening, especially when there was a penguin head up-close. It’s distorted empty eyes haunted my dreams! :D

Overall, a very fun experience that really embodied the feel of a genre of game, under a very short timeframe of development! I was very impressed!

(I didn’t actually get to play this one though I watched several people play; my vision is very poor and I can’t use VR headsets with glasses or contact lenses)

The game looked great, had a sense of space, a variety of different chores, and an overarching sense of purpose. The mechanics of moving and jumping looked engaging, and the voiced characters were cool! All in all, a complete experience that had its own sense of style! I wish I could have tried it out myself. Thematically I liked the idea of doing chores for some boss of some kind and having to run around doing things. It sounded like there were interesting sound cues too but I didn’t really hear them as an observer. Kudos!

Overall I was super impressed for the time frame and polish. If I were to make one tiny nit, it’s that the 2D title placard had a different stylistic “look and feel to it” that sort of took me out of the watching experience, but it also reminded me of how the Atari 2600 cartridge art had no problem with it…so I won’t either :D

Conceptually and thematically I loved it. The world itself looks great and shiny, very appealing…I want to lick it because it’s so shiny. The idea that this is FOREVER TORMENT is also fun conceptually.

The mechanics though I found challenging, as lining up shots was difficult, and the way that the camera would reset randomly (?) would mess things up. So overall, the challenge of the mechanics came across not as “oh, I could do better”, but more as “I do not have the control I need to do what I can clearly see I need to do. Not being able to look up was a problem. The very poor accuracy on keyboard and controller for fine movement combined with the limited view distance made it more frustrating. I had no idea what F was doing to reset the camera. I thought it would position the camera straigt ahead or put it back at a distance, but it seemed random.

I considered that the finicky controls might be part of the “forever torment”, but it is more of a torment of the player than the protagonist so I’m not sure. I think there are sequences in Metal Gear Solid where the controller is made to do weird things like this; that might be an interesting way to show how the gods are messing with ya.

I got through the first two levels, and then pooped out on the third throwing stuff into the pit in the middle. I thought that was cool how the environment changed. I thought that maybe some billiards-style camera controls would have been nice to have!

Characters were nice, environment was cool. I don’t think I noticed any shadows which might have helped ground the world for me better. Maybe a touch of cheap fog for atmospherics? Anyway, I did enjoy playing through the puzzles and the concept a lot!

I didn’t get to the end, as I got lost in one of those darker deep tunnels, was a bit confused by the way the wiring works. The experience itself was nicely paced and I was immediately drawn by the puzzle+exploration aspect of it! I never felt like I was being rushed into something, and felt that the pacing was therefore under my control.

The encroaching darkness and lighting up the lightbulbs and seeing spiders (?) gave me a visceral creepy vibe. VERY COOL. Vibes of Ultima Underworld, one of my favorite explorer games of yore though I don’t actually remember what you do in it. I remember the feeling of exploring and learning about the world, occasionally finding something new and MAYBE scary or MAYBE good? I get similar chills in just the initial playthrough. Awarding a rank of 4 across the board because this is the first game I’m rating, but it’s like a 5 in my heart :D