A really great game! Enjoyed the relationship between Theo and Kim, this kind of bickering couple that probably still do love each other. The dialogue is humorous and witty, while the encounters are quite well put together, the 3D models of the enemies make a nice contrast with the 2D characters! And the music is a bop! Especially that last piece during the dolphin fight!
Thank you very much for making this game, wish you all the best in your future work! :D
A wonderful experience! It's a very meditative stroll through a humanity's graveyard, where you're just collecting the last scraps of technology. Really liked the setting, which managed to be varied despite its "monotonous" nature (such as the designs for each of the stations. My favourite was the Oil station, looks like a mixture between a Brutalist hotel and an oil rig). The controls for the tank were intuitive, with many bells and whistles, so by the end I felt like its driver, despite the short length of the game. The main gameplay loop was definitely Death Stranding-like; monotonous, but solidly done. My favourite part was that each delivery had multiple parts, each named a different thing (like rations of different flavours). Great attention to details!
Of course, the ending is amazing. Even though you showed it in the trailer (spoiler alert!), it was really something. Delivering that package in a race against time, then rolling down the hill at full speed as the timer runs out was exhilirating. And the calm at the end where you just contemplate what happened and what comes next... Fantastic.
Also, not many small indie dev people do this, so thank you for the great trailer for this game! Found out about it on Youtube and this calm desolation really gripped me.
Once again, thank you for making this game, and all the best on your future endeavours!
This was a really enjoyable game! A satisfying, solid meat-and-potatoes gameplay that serves as the base for a wonderful collectathon on a beautiful island! You have managed to remove any potential obstacle that one usually has by adding more clams than necessary and, in general, just designing distinct and reachable locations, mad respect.
And your commentary throughout the game is very relatable, in a way that touched me greatly. Saved your quote about "not trying my best" being an excuse and a self-defense mechanism, because I unfortunately see myself in this quote as well. Something to combat, I guess.
I want to thank you for creating this game and hope that your future career, be it game dev or anything else you'd like, is successful!
This was a really nice visual novel! Loved how despite its fantastical nature, it still teaches the player about the need for self-education and consent, both in medical practices and otherwise. I feel like this is exactly what an edutainment game about blood donation clinics would be like in a world where vampires exist. And that's really cool!
Also Gakuto and Marie are awesome :)
Thank you very much for making this game, and all the best in your future game development!
This is really fun tongue-in-cheek essay! You've caricaturized (in a good way) a very asinine and infuriating political ideology that took the Internet by storm: a movement against politics or ideology.
Honestly, an antagonist like this in a real magical girl story would be very effective. Just this eldritch paragon of neutrality, who you cannot even refer to or name.
Thank you for making this game!
What can one say except WOW. This is an unsettlingly unique horror experience, which is both humorous and unnerving at the same time.
I usually don't write my thoughts in bullet points, since that's not a way to write a proper review, but I just LOVE so many little aspects of this game that it's unavoidable;
- From the intro, we see that it starts with Noelle having just left a 14-hour shift. Relatable, everything that happens in the game is exactly how it feels to go through a 14-hour shift at work :)
- Love the fact that this is the most toxic and unlikeable friend group ever. Just a pit of snakes. Every backstory snippet is just them going "the only thing I hate more than myself is everyone in my friend group". Reminds me of that Sartre story about people having to live together in H*ll.
- The graphic design is GORGEOUS. The little rotating "floor plans" of the stages, the monster design, character design that is evocative despite its simplicity, it's just eye candy through and through.
- Really loved the helpful NPCs! The dancers were wonderful and humorous, really liked the Moon goddess and the Two-Headed Horse, which, for some reason kept giving good hints and tricks as it fought me. Also, that flying cartilage that can ally with you if you hit it hard enough is very nice and helpful!
- All NPCs and encounters have these fantastic evocative names and appearances!
- The "rare events" are SO devious! Half of them were funny, half of them were startling, and I'm ashamed to admit I got caught off-guard by two of them. My favourite was when the "dancers" allowed you to choose a ... different set of boons from what they usually give you.
- The randomness of the encounters in every room is a bit of a double-edged sword. At first, it forced me as a player into stressful situations, where one has to consider how badly they want that medikit, or would they risk getting into the fight with a nun to meet the Dancers. After a long time of replaying the game to get all remembrances, however, the lack of player control over which rooms to visit was more frustrating than exciting. I'm not a game designer, so I don't know how to fix it, or if it should be fixed at all. Perhaps introducing mechanics or items that allow you to raise the chance of certain encounters could work.
- The main gameplay loop is so well-crafted and is balanced, but still with potential to "break" the balance. Which works so well in a game that requires you to break its boundaries to learn its secrets!
- That remembrance with the green-haired girl going "hey, I'm going to go meet you, the player :)" was so well-done, heart missed a bit there for sure!
- Comparing horror media with hidden layers and a metanarrative to House of Leaves is a hack thing to do. Keeping this in mind, the process of constantly going through this house, (especially that "room from your dreams") captured that spirit of nightmarish exploration of the Navidson Records.
- This might be controversial, and I'm sure you're intending to explain the main plot, but I feel like this sense of a fever dream (from many clues, it does seem to be a dream), this sense of never having any explanation for what is happening is so exciting. Like living through a nightmare..
I just have spent the last 6 hours playing 100% your demo and the very thought of a demo having so many layers and so many secrets in it is jaw-dropping. Thank you so much for making this game and good luck on pushing this already monumental gaming experience to its conclusion!
Been looking to play this game for quite a while, and it was absolutely amazing!
It's hard to call this game enjoyable, because of course, despite the narrator stating that this will have a "happy ending" and there is "no twist" to it, it's a game about you being a part of a mismanaged, malicious system that actively kills our environment, depicted here by the island. Driving your truck around and seeing the ever-increasing piles of garbage and dead trees is really something. I like how Demont and you aren't portrayed as cartoonish villains. The evil you do isn't really mentioned or acknowledged. It's probably not even internalized as something evil. Killing this island is just a part of life.
Thank you for this great game.
Really beautiful game, and thought provoking. The visuals are otherworldly, with this beautiful magenta palette creating an alien world.
This game really made me a bit angry at the thought of quack doctors and spiritual gurus like this, going around homes and promising a solution to every problem, while their "solution" is little more than mindless finger-painting. And they, more often than not, are just like the Coppersmith here, taking life and health of people in need, giving them nothing in return. All to achieve their own "immortality", or wealth, or respect. At least that imposter was just handing out snake oil instead of gouging their eyes out.
At least that's my take on the game, I'm not too much of a alternative medicine type ;) . Thank you for making this game!
I am not going to lie, I didn't really read the "horde killing" and "inspired by Vampire Survivors" part, so the part that came after killing your sister came as quite a shock (in a good way)! The gameplay is very crisp and responsive, taking the Vampire Survivors concept from 2D to 3D was an awesome idea, and the leveling system was a delight to explore, with all the different vegetables and recipes!
Of course, the artstyle and the plot really ties it all together, tying a hardcore action gameplay with a somber and fatalist narrative. The two didn't feel like they would mix, but you really excelled at it!
This is just a personal reading, but I didn't quite realize that you keep playing as one mouse. I thought that if you fail, you kill the eldest sister, and then you become the elder sister that is destined to be killed. And the idea of this roguelite that still has a risk factor (albeit an emotional one) is stellar. If you cannot beat Mother of Many in this run, nothing happens to you the player, but you know that you allow this cycle to continue and resulted in a death of yet another sister. That is such a gut punch, and really incentivizes the player to beat the game as quickly as possible.
I know this reading doesn't seem to be the correct one, judging by the ending, you always played as one mouse, but I don't know whether this was influenced by an artistic choice or time constraints on the project. The theme of incremental progression of a society to elevate oneself above a cruel deity and a backwards ritual is a theme that really shines within your project.
Apologies for the long message, I just wanted to tell you just how much I loved your folks' work. Thank you so much for making this game and wish you all the best in your future projects!
Really loved this game! Reminds me a little of Puzzles & Dragons in all the best ways, where you feel so good for unleashing several spells at once. Really makes you want to replay the stage, getting a new build every time! Your addition of different starting spell sets is a genius idea for exactly this reason! My favourite is the hex build of course, really enjoyable to pull off.
All in all, great demo, wish you all the best on developing it to the end!
This is such a nice game! As someone who loves taking long walks for similar reasons to you, getting to take a promenade alongside a city I've never seen before is an amazing experience. Something that is missed by the mainstream ways of "digital tourism" (like reading about the place online or Google Maps) is that a city is borne out of the personal attachments to it by its citizens, by their memories and experiences in it. In this game, I feel, you manage to provide this soul, giving a life to Coruña that we would otherwise not be aware of.
Coruña seems like a very beautiful city and you have very beautiful memories tied to this place. Wish you all the best in your gamedev career and life in general!
I've been to modern art museums, and sometimes they have large rooms that are dedicated to a solitary, three-dimensional experience. Like the Yaoi Kusama pumpkin room. When it works, it's mesmerizing, you want to stay in that room forever.
Your game is composed of a hundred of rooms, each of them an experience that people would love to see in a museum. I hope this explains just how stunning your work is and how many more people need to see it.
Thank you very much for making this game.
Hello! Really enjoyed the new demo! It's been really polished since the original jam demo, the camera now works smoothly and the world is much more open! It's been fun finding all the chests and finding the perfect spots to pass through the rings from! And the level design is just beautiful!
One minor thing that could be a problem for some (I got used to it after a few tries), is the close position of the "pound" key and "dash" keys on the keyboard, where a mistype means pounding all the way down a chasm instead of flying to the needed place. But that's a minor nitpick, and the mushroom quick-travel really negated any potential frustration.
All in all, fantastic second demo, and good luck on your future work on the game!
Really great demo! As an avid TD genre fan, this game was a blast to play. The variety of towers and their connections between each other really made the field become more dynamic with each tower placed, and it was interesting figuring out how to do the typical strategic bottlenecks that are so common in TD games when enemies can actually climb your towers!
To be honest, I have not completed the demo campaign, since the last level is quite brutal, but of what I have played, I loved! Thank you for making this game and all the best to you in your future development of it!
For anyone interested in a similar premise of a TD game where you build up your towers vertically (though done in 2D and a bit differently), highly recommend Giants and Dwarves!
It is understood on a surface level that people in the past have led lives no less real and important as ours. This idea, however, is difficult to really take to heart emotionally, to embrace it spiritually. Thank you for creating a game that no doubt will achieve its goal of making people think about the past as lives and work and artisanship of real human beings and not a dry collection of dates. It is an exceptional game.
Hello! Really great game, enjoyed this upwards journey and the engaging flight mechanic! Loved the slow build-up of both power and stylish witch clothing! Only thing I'd say is the camera is a bit unresponsive, somewhere in the middle between a set camera and a free-roaming camera, which occasionally prevents one from seeing the next ledge, requiring leaps of faith sometimes. Other than that, fantastic demo for a future fantastic game! :D
In these post-truth times, I happily choose to post.
Thank you for yet another fantastic game! This "soft censorship" of the press is something that isn't talked about enough, and using a similar system to Lucas Pope's game draws a meta comparison between how similar "propagandistic authoritarian censorship" and "free Western democratic media" really are. Just different interests you protect.
Once again, really enjoyable game, and a message that is very important to spread.
Hello! Great premise, great 1-bit art, and got some good music and movie recommendations from it! Do have to say that if you decide to expand on this game (it was done with a time limit in mind, after all), some deeper thought should go into the questions.
It's hard to imagine getting rejected by a date because you ask her "Do you listen to Always" instead of Alvvays. And anyone who rejects a person because of such contrivance is not worth dating, really. This, along with slow text scroll, makes the game a more frustrating and less fun process.
Also, if the date gave a more detailed answer to the questions, there would be a need to remember more things rather than the basic "food/movie/sport" stuff, making the game more interesting to play.
As a game jam submission, it's great! Thank you for making it and good luck in your creative endeavors!
Finally got around to playing it, I know it's a very early demo, but it's still got the same soul that you've been putting into your music. My favourite moments were the prayer at the shrine (especially the tablet that has been broken for longer than Addison and Annie even existed) and the fish cartographer (they're cool). Really look forward to you putting this project into the engine you prefer, all the best to you with that!
Really enjoyed playing this game, a great card game with some good depth behind it, especially on hardcore mode! Kudos to the developers, all the best to you!
Message-wise, it's a really apolitical and rose-tinted view on the impeding catastrophe, where carbon credits can somehow fix the fact that our entire economic system relies on destroying the environment for short-term gain and 90% of what is shown here in the game will never be allowed to happen by our current capitalist governments. What we need is revolutionary change, not carbon tax credits.
However, this game provides a hopeful, albeit unrealistic future that mankind can go towards, and isn't that the most important thing a game like this can do? Because hey, if you portray the realities of our climate situation, you'll just get gamers to "First Reformed" themselves :(
If you liked this game, try out Green New Deal Simulator! Same underlying problems with the game's politics, but if you liked this game, you'll like this one too!
Since this is the final update for this game, wanted to leave a comment on the finished work. Darkwatcher1001 has provided a fantastic review below already, nothing I'll say they didn't say better. Just wanted to once again thank you for making this game and your approach to writing believable characters. It seems like 12 characters is a lot but all of them are memorable and unique.
For a game like this you really went in detail with the worldbuilding and the "scientific" treatment of the topic. The inclusion of basic safety protocol like mental health check-ups or making sure that risk of complications is minimal when proceeding with Olivia's treatment greatly enhanced the experience.
And, it may sound strange, but thank you for putting a full stop and finishing the game. A lot of developers it seems burn out before they are able to reach the finish line and leave an incomplete experience for the players. You went at your own pace and made a full plot-heavy game with illustrations, and a coherent ending that ties it all together nicely! In an age of half-finished works and eternal Alpha-versions, your work ethic is something that I admire.
Once again, thank you for your work, looking forward to anything you create in the future, don't listen to the haters or the 40000 people asking you when the next update is and, most importantly, have a good life!
