itch.io

I totally agree that this is more an experience than a game, because there is no real challenge and not much to do. Thank you for your nice feedback! :)

Thank you :D haha yeah, I guess especially the sounds are quite creepy. It was a funny diversifier for that one originally, to produce all the sounds in the game with your mouth. :D

Thank you for your feedback, NigeC! I wanted to add even more effects by the way, but those need some more technical research. :D

Thank you so much for your feedback! I already tried to help players a bit with that "bug" problem by adding some lines to the loca since the first release. But your comment inspired me to additionally try another idea - I think I'll add something with the next bugfix update. Thank you. :)

With this project, you have shown that a game created with the help of AI tools can still be more than "just that". The story you tell here is still yours.

It is impressive to see what you managed to create here. The mood and emotions, it's obvious that you have a strong creative vision for what kind of experience and story you were aiming for. Yes, the use of AI is a thing that still caused conflicting feelings in myself as a more or less "traditional" but mostly digital artist. But I understand that you wanted to use what you can to realize your ideas. 

Most of what I saw of your game was in that Yaz Stream though. I downloaded and started it to see it myself, but unfortunately I struggled with that breathing interaction with the ring. Somehow I didn't really understand what the game expects of me, so I clicked and clicked and clicked, the ring was colored, but all that happened was a slow zoom at the door. So I am not sure if I did something wrong or if I stumbled upon a bug. If it works as intended, maybe it would help to show a small description how to do it ingame somewhere, or at least in the game description on the itch io page? At least it didn't feel like it's supposed to be a puzzle how to do it.

I like the presentation overall (despite the use of AI) and since you honestly list everything in the credits, to me it feels okay this way. For example less "unfair" when compared to other entries in this jam.

Sorry for your loss!

By the way, I really like the game title and that you didn't just go for a generic english title (almost) everyone would understand at a glance. It makes it even more unique. I've learned a bit Swedish a while ago and was able to understand the meaning without looking it up, which was a nice experience for me, personally. Looking forward to the updated version!

I watched the Yaz Stream where SCT was presented and I really enjoyed looking for those runes myself while watching. The atmosphere is fascinating and those written text lines on game start written right on my desktop totally creeped me out. In a good way! Haha.

Unfortunately the game doesn't like my 4k resolution screen and hid in a corner of my screen - so I couldn't enjoy a fullscreen experience and it was hard for me to play it this way. I still wanted to give you feedback, since this is a very interesting game and hope you will keep this on your itch.io page for other to enjoy.

Thank you for organizing this jam and for sharing your own creation with us!

I am really impressed what you delivered again in such a short amount of time (which I know was much less than the overall jam duration). Sorry for again not helping you out as a team member this year (while even working on my own game), I hope I'll be able to do this in another jam again. But you obviously are very capable to accomplish amazing Argonauts stuff without me anyway as you have  proven with your recent games. 

The story and characters are really funny, and while you included that maths diversifier which I didn't like much, you did it in a way that was very fair and not annoying at all. Like all the puzzles, it was implemented well. That sound of the blue monster was really funny. And after I finally watched that Mario Bros movie yesterday (never actually played that),  playing Yazoria now was the perfect time to understand another joke (about that flame throwing dragon and the plumber :P).

Congrats on finishing this together right in time! :D

Finally I played this game. The best thing about it is that I wasn't part of the dev team this time, so I could enjoy the whole experience in a fresh way as a player. :D - the story and characters are really funny, the graphics typical Esmeralda quality - awesome. Both you and z10 really did a good job on those, and it such short amount of time. And Einzelkämpfer did a very nice job on those menus again. Polishing those was definitely worth it, it looks much better now than in the recent stream. Thank you for participating in another YazJam and delivering another awesome Argonaut's game!

I played the Mighty Sloth for a while because I wanted to experience it myself after watching it in the stream. For me it's a bit difficult because I usually don't play SciFi themed games. But you did a nice job on the atmosphere, and the whole sloth and polymorph theme is funny. I like retro styled games, as long as I don't have problems with interacting with them. The game worked well for me so far, although I had to get used to the controls/movement, because I also usually don't play such kind of first person game. But it was definitely an interesting experience, thanks for creating this!

There is one problem I want to mention that I would recommend to fix: While I played the game, I intuitively/almost automatically wanted to open the game/pause menu to save the game. Yeah, to be honest I haven't checked the game description where you list the controls, and in older games you maybe didn't use ESC for this - but I did. And that was rather frustrating, because of course by accidentally hard quitting I lost all my progress. If you can, I would really recommend to not just hard quit the game with ESC, but open a menu instead where the player can choose if they want to save/load or quit the game or continue playing. It could make your game more accessible for some players.

Anyway, congrats for finishing this. I also enjoy to watch the development of your games in the discord!

The design of that space ship is so funny! Of course it makes totally sense with that game title. I have already watched this game in the Yaz games stream and now finally found the time to play a bit. The story idea is cool and the graphics work well.

Interesting experience! The best part for me was the stairs maze. I like how you implemented the "Yay!", it's funny. Getting that duck was a bit scary for me. It's a nice jam entry you created there, definitely matched the theme of the jam, and as a dev it was interesting to see a game made with Godot.

I already watched this game in the Yaz games stream, but I wanted to experience it myself. The mood is nice, I like the music. My favorite part was the stairs maze. It was just right - confusing, a bit scary, but not frustrating. I was able to find four items, but while searching for the fifth one (I think there is one hidden somewhere in the maze) I also was stuck on the top of those stairs where you go down coming from the room with the item collection.

Oh, I have forgot to comment here! This is a small work of art and I'd really like to see more of this.

I like the human-made style of this game. It is adorable and unique.

After having watched a bit of Nattetid gameplay already in the Yaz5 stream, I played a bit myself and went exploring. The style of this game is lovely, it has all the game jam vibes. I like the character design, it reminds me of that boy from Where the Wild Things are, but it's still yours. The different locations are surprising and you never know what to expect when leaving a room and entering another scene. I definitely haven't seen it all, I know there was more from the stream. What I saw so far looked promising, and as far as I understood you are still working on expanding the game? Keep it up! I would have liked to enable to interact a bit with something, not sure if I just haven't seen it where I was in the game, or it isn't planned? For me it was definitely a dream like game and a good fit for this jam.

I finally played it. :D Congrats for finishing this game, Simon. It's beautiful and unique and I love this kind of projects. While the puzzles are not for me, I managed to "crack" the generators puzzle by brute forcing/just trying different combinations. I know this isn't supposed to work that way, but I have low patience when it comes to maths. I wasn't able to solve the colors / numbers puzzle even with the mini guide, but I saved the game for now and will try it again on another day. Your island of the dead interpretation is really interesting and I would actually like to see more of such experiments. But I am also looking forward to whatever's next, because your creativity in game dev is so fresh and unpredictable.

Finally I started playing Boklin myself. This is such an atmospheric game. After all the time since you shared it and since i watched others playing the game, I finally noticed today that this island layout is actually inspired by that famous painting of the island of the dead. Oops. Beautiful! What an awesome idea to create a game based on this. I am amazed.

I guess you know that I personally have a rather hard time with this type of puzzles, but this is fine - it's just me. I enjoy the mood and atmosphere and your creative ideas here which is more than enough for me.

Congrats for finishing this in such a short amount of time. I am in awe.

Glückwunsch zur Fertigstellung eines weiteren Spiels! Schön zu sehen, dass du weiterhin Spaß daran hast, interaktive Geschichten zu erzählen.

Thank you so much. :)

Awesome! It is really cool to see what different kinds of games one can create with the help of such tools. I used that as well for my last game and really enjoyed it.

Oh, I have another question: So the game has been made with Unity. Did you use any additional tools/frameworks for realizing this type of gameplay or did you program it all by yourself? I've played the WebGL version btw and haven't tried the downloadable yet.

I just stumbled upon your game and I am absolutely in awe! I have just started playing and the mood and voiceover is fantastic. How long have y'all worked on this?

No, think of a certain type of malware called computer worms. :)

The lighting and mood in this experience is fascinating. I was a bit sad when the music stopped, but I also liked the other sound effects, even the footstep sounds. They were an interesting contrast, felt so normal and real compared to the surreal visual surroundings.

For me, walking simulators are fine, but I would have liked to be able to explore a bit more. Being able to leave the path was interesting, but it would be more interesting if there was something I could only reach or see/experience by leaving the path. Same with the object I would have liked to inspect at the end of the game. The experience felt incomplete.

I absolutely like how you let the player interpret what they see here and what's going on, really! I just would have liked to see and experience more of it. 

Looking forward to more of your experiments, and to be honest, I rather see an unfinished experiment to be shared, than none. :)

Yeah, my idea was like "How do hackers destroy computer systems? With viruses and ..." - and this witch isn't the most usual hacker, so she has her own methods and ideas.

Commenting here as well, since the game jam entry comments are not showing up here. Thank you so much for sharing this old-school adventure with the community! 

It runs pretty well on a modern machine and I enjoyed exploring the strange world. It's absolutely recognizable that this project is dear to you and I am happy that you were able to pick it up and finish it after such a long time.

The atmosphere and old-school vibes of your game are fantastic. It was great to see that you were able to revive your old game and finish it/make it playable for this jam. I can imagine how dear this project must be to you, and it is awesome that you are able to share it, so everyone can easily play it so many years after you started it.

In a way, installing your game actually felt like part of this old-school experience in a positive way.

I am really happe to see such an old-school entry in this jam! The low resolution didn't hurt at all, somehow it even supported the atmosphere at least for me.

I had a glitch with the text display of the notes, but it wasn't really dramatic and didn't hinder me from playing it through.

This is a beautiful exploration game, no hard puzzles, but inviting the player to just try and find out what to do to move on.

The sound effects and music are fine as well.

This interactive experience was definitely a trip. Congrats for finishing your entry for this jam in time. I never knew what to expect behind the next corner, just like in a dream. The snoring sounds felt a bit obvious for the theme question, if the person is dreaming.

It is funny how "godlike" you implemented the "5" diversifier.

Overall I was a bit confused where I am and where to go; that I am supposed to click to get navigation options. So I am not sure if I have seen everything. 

It would be nice if the ingame credits would be shown a bit longer, I wasn't able to completely read them.

Keep being creative and inspired!

Ah good, I somehow expected that one. I'll see if I can put an hint somewhere later to help players with this a bit. :) Thank you!

Thank you so much! Which of the puzzles felt moon logic-y to you? I have a guess but I would like to know your opinion. :)

I really wasn't sure if I should submit this again, but this feedback makes me happy and is a confirmation.

By the way: the game is actually based on a veeeery early real dream (or: nightmare) of mine which I never forgot. I just had to try to recreate this atmosphere!

Thank you for your nice feedback! I'm looking forward to play yours as well after I watched the Tiger's stream yesterday. :)

Thank you so much! 

I created the backgrounds at first in Blender in 3D. There are actually not many details, and no textures either, and the models didn't have to be game-ready "clean" (since I wouldn't use them in-game, but 2D background images instead), so this was rather quick to do. It was also very helpful because I could play around with the perspective before starting drawing over them for a consistent style.

For the character I already had a character design ready before the game jam started. Last year I had started a "drawing a witch a day" project where I created a witch character design concept. In the beginning of 2024 I spontaneously sewed a witch doll based on that. And this witch doll made of real cloth was the actual reference for this game protagonist.  :) So I didn't have to do much think-work about that one, besides chosing the color palette for the different time settings.

And I worked through the whole two months. At first after work and on weekends, and then (I think the character animation alone took three of such "weeks"), I fortunately had two weeks of vacation where I was able to almost work full time on the jam. I didn't count the hours, but it was pretty much time after all, and for sure more than other participants were able to invest. I hope this isn't unfair in some way.

Thank you so much for your detailed review! It is really interesting how you experienced the game. And it makes me so happy that you like the graphics, world and especially the character.

Do you remember what part of text it was that you didn't completely understand? Maybe I can improve on that. English isn't my native language either, so it can always be a problem of the translation.

Also thank you for the encouragement during development. It was a difficult time for me and this was really helpful and motivating. It was a bit hard to keep the other work in progress locations for me and not showing them during dev in the discord, to not spoil to much about the story of the game. :D

Just played through this new Francium episode. Congrats for finishing another one during a jam! Oh, I forgot to mention in my other comment that it was funny to recognize your inspiration for the graphics style in this episode (without reading your credits beforehand). I haven't played many Zelda games, but you managed to recreate the feeling of such games pretty well.

Have you read the instructions/gameplay info for the controls? You need to use your keyboard to let the robot walk around in the room and then click with your left mouse button on the object names that are popping up. :)

Finally I found the time to play a first entry for this jam. I have played other Francium games before this one, so the world and character wasn't totally new to me. I enjoyed to see the cute robot again. The level design felt like something from my childhood. Especially with the unusual top down view, it felt like i was sitting on the floor in my child's room and playing with a toy robot. I think Roboto, the protagonist has a cute way of acting and thinking. I especially liked how he was afraid of using the stairs.

It was fun to see different types of gameplay in this small game. Everything worked well for me and the timing/feedback felt fair. Only in the hammer scene it would have been nice if I could have directly tried again instead of combining the hammer again. Francium Prologue has a perfect length. I had a long day of work and really wanted to play at least one of the jam entries afterwards today. Looks like I picked the right one to start with!

Overall an enjoyable and surprising new episode of the Francium series. Looking forward to see more of them and curious what style experiment will be next.

Congrats for submitting this new Francium story episode in time!