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Great as usual! This  punchy bite-sized pulp  narrative does a great job building an evocative world and showcasing some very cool pixel art.

Thank you! Yeah like I've been saying any autobiographical stuff isn't really what's important, I just really wanted to tell this story.

Yeah someone else in the comments felt like the puzzle was just in it to say there was a puzzle. The original outline had a lot of other story elements that got cut involving stuff going on at a hospital and a bunch of other things, but the barrel puzzle stayed. It was meant to give the player a very brief respite after I dragged them through hell and as a little tribute to the sorts of puzzles in the original ZZT games. Either way, I'm glad the rest of the game resonated with you!

Thank you! You know when I analyze a text I rip every little word apart. I think the way I write prose, lucid and dense, maybe I'm trying to encourage people to read the way I do. But yeah regardless of any autobiographical elements I was just hoping to get people thinking about some tough but very real subjects.

Oh my that was anxiety inducing. I guess really it's a narrative about anxiety, and boy that made me feel it. I always felt like I was lost, but it progressed quickly and it's crazy how it made me feel like I was never going to escape. Thank you for this one!

Thanks for the follow, just wanted to let you know I did manage to finish the game last week! I loved how expansive the play area was, and I had a lot of fun "a-ha!" moments with the wide variety of puzzles. Great work.

This was really cool! The opening graphic and voiceover pulled me in, very simple but evocative pixel art with a fun descriptive narrative. I was really interested in the exploration after that, and had some fun navigating the passages until I moved out of the game area. Would love to see what you do with this one!

Thank you! I like the dialogue choices idea, even if you were presented with four and could unload all of them or choose to say none of them would be cool. I think I wouldn't want the player to have to play it again to experience the different options, but I think if they could explore them all in one sitting it'd be higher impact.

You know I've started LISA but I only played it for an hour or so, I should finish it.

Thank you!

Thank you! The original outline had a lot cut from it, and I had a variety of reasons to include the barrels. Giving the play more interactivity in the game's denouement, like a respite after the intensity is probably the biggest one, but yeah part of me just felt like it was funny making the player push around Doom barrels lol. Really barrel pushing puzzles were one of my favorite parts of old school ZZT games too.

Thank you!

There's always something so enchanting about traditional illustration being used in a game. One of my favorites is Saga Frontier 2 just because of its hand-drawn backgrounds. Ed's paintings are very evocative and match your succinct narrative perfectly. Great work!

I got about three of the endings, very interesting absurdist plot. There seemed to be a lot of recorded dialogue for the news radio station, and it was interesting zipping around the galaxy in my train. I did clip out of the space station once, but when I walked towards my train I just popped back in it so you must have prepared for such an occasion. Cool stuff!

It was really cool playing a stealth game with simple and intuitive point-and-click controls. I would love a reason and a way to distract the guards, like one's posted stationary blocking the path and you startle them with an inventory item. It looks and sounds great, good work!

Brisk game with some nice art! It's definitely a cool concept, I'm curious to see if you go with more puzzle focused or more frantic get to the goal gameplay as you keep working on it. Very cool!

This was a lot of fun! The concept lends itself to fetch questy puzzling, but really there's a bit more going on here. Searching around, smashing pots, jumping about, crawling through vents and opening safes. Every time I was told I had to deliver the package elsewhere I was really interested in where I was being sent next. Very nice!

When I normally reach an escort mission in any game I let out a big groan, but this idea is so fun! Trying to manipulate my hero to notice the enemy, cowering away from other threats while my hero is preoccupied. A really fun idea that could be developed into something exceptional.

Thank you, that means a lot!

Thank you! I appreciate you sharing your experience, I was pretty fussy with the story's pacing and I'm glad you found it effective.

This is such an adorable idea! The idea of exploring the day-to-day mundane activities of an adventurer off the clock is interesting, especially for someone who still plays dnd 2e twice a month. Very cute and really cool for what it is!

Pretty good start! It seems like you had a pretty big scope for this project. I liked the opening puzzle sequence that is here, and I was intrigued by the hints of ones that weren't finished. The mini game in the arcade was a nice touch, I was curious if you were going to add more. 

Real skill here with your prose, plus I got to pet cats!   You did a good job making each world feel unique with a different tone. I'll follow you!

This one was so cool! I was a little alarmed at first about how large my party was ballooning, but some of those final area bosses I was still losing party members. It was cool when I realized my party members were leveling up and gaining different abilities, which made me want to auto-battle less and play around. There's a bit more going on the hood with this one than meets the eye, and I really enjoyed myself.

Very fun little narrative game with some branching options. The humor is pretty on point, my favorite bits being tied into how the protagonist is a dog (who happens to have a lot of adult media on his computer that must be brought on a road trip).

For this one I alternated between gleefully collecting the coins and being anxious what was coming next. This one's rich with atmosphere and evokes a lot of feelings over the course of a few minutes. The only thing that disappointed me was when it ended. I hope you expand on this or make another experience that builds on these ideas.

This one had me totally engaged for a bit! I wish saving was possible, because it's easy to do something wrong in the game's current state and either die or not be able to progress. Dragging items from the inventory where they're not supposed to be used causes them to disappear forever unless they're being moved around on the screen they were collected. 

Still, the actual exploration and sense of progression when I DID figure out the next step felt rewarding.  Figuring out the dog wants the bone, deciphering the message on the statue, getting the weapon. Harkening back to the earlier King's Quests is something I wish more games did. Cool stuff.

Retro ps1 graphics horror and found footage VHS games have been becoming my favorite recently. Your game feels like a change of pace from the ones I tend to play which are strictly narrative, those ones are mostly walking and watching spooky events unfold. Your game was more like a maze game where I'm occasionally running from a fiend, which was a neat change of pace. Good job incorporating the aesthetic to make something different!

The pixel art is cool and the QTE combat system is engaging! 

It seems like attacking up or down has a much bigger hitbox than left or right, which left me constantly jockeying for a better position while fighting the faster slimes. It was so cool, reminded me of playing the earlier Ys games trying to get in the right position to bump somebody. 

Not a lot of story but what is here is nice, I liked the sword talking to me like he only wanted to hang out with an adventurer who wasn't broke. Good job making something fun!

Going to be the echo in the room saying good start. If you do continue work, it seems like you could go one of two ways: lean into having more varied and tough encounters like in a hack and slash clicker like Diablo or add some puzzles like Zelda. I think for the former approach the game's tempo might need to be a little faster, for the latter you've got it just right. Nice one!

The worst ending was when I had to go back to the real world and pay taxes and stuff.

This was cute and fun! The writing is appropriately deadpan and there's a couple monsters that looked neat. The one in the cave was pretty cool. The funniest thing was probably that the correct path was almost always evident, and deliberately going into the small hole or the path marked beware is for those who are only morbidly curious. Emphasis on the word morbid.

Thank you! 

Uniformly beautiful pixel art as usual. I was so invested in Book Two and couldn't wait to see where this one picked up. This one definitely felt like it will be a low point in the action for the overarching narrative, but the puzzles were very engaging and I'm still pretty excited to see what happens next. I definitely preferred the first two sequences to the third, but the last does its job setting us up for the next chapter. Good stuff!

Lot of effort put into this one! The backgrounds are absolutely stunning here, any the Dig comparisons are for sure complementary considering how beautiful both the backdrop art looks in that and in your game. 

As a kid I used to just eat up episode after episode of the Twilight Zone. The narration and the drama in the second half were such a sweet tribute to that series. For me, I loved how the puzzle-focused beginning set up how blue collared the family really was. The modesty of the wish and the extreme consequences resonates more with me because it's in such an isolated, domestic setting. Great work!

I drove Popochiu Park into the ground and I totally thought Simba could beat Scar, I'm not very good at this game.

For real though I had to play every option, it was just too funny! In this age of streaming and onward, there's probably a lot of younger people who will never get to experience the absurdity of channel surfing. I'm glad I got to experience it one more time with such great art and humor. I almost spit my drink out at the rendition of Hakuna Matata (how do you spell that?). Definitely one that has to be played!

Thank you! I appreciate the big hug, but yeah I think regardless of any potential autobiographical elements I just hope it gets people thinking about and discussing these tough topics. Like one person I've known for a decade played it and afterward they opened up about their childhood, I think it was a good experience for them and it sparked a really good conversation. That was what my hope was with this one.

Thank you, that means a lot! I'm glad you dissected all the little details, that tends to be how I analyze texts and I think it informs how I make anything creative. I get pretty fussy about what small bits go in and which are too baggy or unnecessary. 

Every puzzle was contingent on the narrative in a way that felt so natural. Not everything is fully explained, and in the end I was going over the player characters actions and the implications of the audio logs a bit in my head. I guess that's just proof I was super invested. Cool pixel art, nice voice acting, but really what I liked the most was how the puzzles never broke immersion, only reinforced it. Cool stuff!

You and your crew have crafted a beautiful world. The music, the sounds, the art, the dialogue, everything draws me in so deep and makes me want to know more about what will happen. I played the Witch's Lullaby last year and enjoyed it, but the writing here is painting such a huge portrait and I want to know where it goes so badly. Can't wait to see the finished product!

I can tell there's the making of something much greater here, between the interactions that are here and the nice art. I'm going to follow, please keep working on this one!

This game is awesome! There's a lot of great build up and atmosphere, and although there's only one real puzzle, there's a couple really cool choice-based options that felt pretty substantial. I ended up becoming a little too murderous for my own good, but that's how it goes when the choices are so substantial. Good work!