itch.io

Hey congrats on your release, it's quite impressive how much you've achieved as a 2-person team with this tight schedule. The writing is compelling, you know your subject and the NPCs had distinctive voices. The visuals are cool too, and congrats especially since it's your first time working in pixel art. You are also bringing to attention something that isn't discussed enough (green-washing in the age of capitalism) in a way that is both entertaining and meaningful. I was happy to have my character lose his job and leave to Mexico lol.

That being said, I got almost stuck at the end of Q1, when I had to choose Dave's lifestyle and savings (it wasn't super clear that I had to reach 0 to move to the next quarter). It reminded me of Papers, Please, and I think it'd be interesting to bring a few more elements here for future developments to add more weight about losing your job potentially and go become an activist (the cost is much higher if you don't have any savings, need to provide for a family, etc.) Just a random thought. You did great, thank you for sharing your game!

Hey congrats on your release. I really loved to read a story inspired by what's going on in Punjab and India. I think it's super cool that you're inspired by your family stories and all. It was also nice to learn more about the animals and their habitats via the book. I was sadly not able to use the inventory items as well and got stuck in the level accidentally (in an awkward corner near the house). As a fellow solo dev who was also using Godot, I feel you -- and you've done quite a lot on your own, the UI works well. While you don't seem to enjoy the 2D approach I kinda liked it -- it gave me some Harvest Moon vibes or games like To The Moon. Hope you get to work on this concept more, the idea about the inter-generational link is also super interesting. And we need to see more stories like this overall.

Was there any Nier:Automata influence here? :) The character's silhouette and design are pretty nice, and I quite enjoyed the music too. It seems it's possible to get past the opening dialogue and move to the right by attacking/right clicking to have the character move a bit more to the right and go past the detection zone. I wasn't able to go too far though -- there were lots of lagging when attacking enemies and jumping, so the PC died. It's still an intriguing idea, congrats for going that far and I hope you'll be able to work more on it in the next months!

Solid game, congrats! It was fun to discover the cards with some combinations that would even suggest some storytelling about the "type of activist you are" (but it was hard not to min-max things haha). I only played the easy mode. I was a bit confused at first UX wise about card placements (if there was any impact in placing the cards at specific spots within each scope). It doesn't seem to be the case. Some events felt brutal (removing all of my cards) but also there might have been some quirks when I didn't have enough cards to fit the initial requirements (say, I have 8 hypocrisy but only have 6 cards deployed). A random idea: I don't know if you have archetypes for the activist but this could bring to you some special sets (like the "poet/artist activist" vs the "political orator activist" etc.) with some possible combos, and ways for you to add "decks" and build up multiple levels with different challenges. I also wonder if the music could change when you unlock a next scope.

Thank you for the comment! I'm glad you've enjoyed the result. :) I've made a few changes over time story-wise yeah. And also I stumbled upon tons of free music from Nid on itch.io, so I couldn't resist using one of them ultimately. They're very talented I think! https://aoha-music.itch.io/

Thanks! I managed to complete the first puzzle, but not the second one (the objective was a bit less clear to me, and I couldn't figure out my way around the blocks :D) The aesthetics are charming (but I do have a soft spot for cats). Congrats on the release, looking forward to play the whole thing!

That's a very ambitious project (especially if you're alone). Congrats on having so much done in so little time. The themes are intriguing. I kinda wish I had more context about who the main character is, but maybe it's because I couldn't play very far. Sadly I wasn't able to use the Interact or the Camera and I'm not too sure why (pressing E or C didn't do anything for me). I also had some troubles walking around while moving the camera (sometimes the playable character went in a wrong direction).

Hi! I can't figure out how to open the game (I'm on Windows). It feels like you shared the Godot project you had but not exported it to an executable?

Intriguing concept! I had to read your ideation document to have a better understanding of the game, because the "how to play the game" button didn't show me anything. (I only had texts about the controls while playing) 

The tetris-like blocks gave me the impression that this would be about clearing lines and avoiding having too many things piled up like in regular Tetris, but this was actually the opposite. The physics of the blocks are quite fun, but the temperature meter never went up in my case, no matter what I did on screen. Also, not having a grid and not knowing how wide and high I could go while using blocks was a bit confusing to me (but I guess I've played too much Tetris). I'm not sure if this was intentional or not but I didn't notice much of a difference between the types of blocks (as mentioned in the ideation doc).

Nice thank you! Nice progress here, I was able to talk to a few people and put some wood into the fire, until I fell into a snow pit and wasn't able to jump out of it lol. As someone else mentioned, the level feels huge, not sure if it's on purpose or not, but I guess you'll probably to have to think about how long it takes to go through a level vs the clock ticking, and how fast the character can move or not. Good luck with the next steps!

Quite intriguing! I didn't check your project during the concept phase, but even without context I could make some guesses based on the gameplay video you shared. Good luck with the next steps! Making a game with fighting mechanics in such a tight deadline is definitely not the easiest road, but you seems to have quite a lot of visual and audio assets already that feel nice and consistent.

Congrats on making a playable prototype! I was also a bit confused like the other commenter mentioned, until I read the README file. It seems the first time I booted the prototype all the enemies were not moving and just a bunch of static circles in the middle of the screen. Second time they were closing in on the PC as intended I think. In any case, good luck with the next steps, and the dino sprite looks cute!

That's a very solid prototype, congrats! I especially enjoyed the events that would disrupt and force me to remove cards. It wasn't very clear to me though (without context) if there was any benefit or downside when adding cards to smaller scopes after unlocking bigger ones.

Thanks a ton! :) I definitely want to flesh out options for relationships (of any kind) via choices, but I don't think it'll fit the scope of this jam. And yes I need more visuals, these were all placeholders just to test the feature of switching pictures with texts, but even so the pacing is very random at the moment.

Thank you! All the visuals/UI are placeholders, and I definitely want to convey a more "writerly" feel through fonts and such. I just have to figure out a way to make it fit with a solarpunk aesthetic. There's also definitely more to do with the writing itself. 

As the other commenter mentioned: the link to the windows build seems to be missing?

Thank you very much for your comments! They're very helpful and I will definitely try to clarify what can be done or not with this epistolary style. 

Thank you for your comment! These days I'm having a great time researching about where commonly used ingredients come from and their possible equivalents in other parts of the world. Good luck with your own project, it looks very intriguing!

Intriguing idea! I'm very curious to see how you'll connect the "micro" and "macro" (how small daily actions can have larger consequences). I'm not entirely sure I fully understood the concept to be honest though -- I'm having a hard time understanding how the players' real life actions will be tracked or recorded within the game (for example, if they drink a water bottle, will they have to register it themselves in the game? Which might be hard to incentivize especially if they know it'll impact their island.) Maybe you cannot  "degrade" the island but only restore it slowly over time, which might enforce a positive loop instead.

Thank you very much for the kind words! I really hope the game will live up to such expectations, ha! :)

As a big fan of Ace Attorney your key art caught my eye haha. Your card game looks interesting. I must admit some of the language confused me a bit (such as "Column" for example, which is not a column). I think this will get clearer with a prototype though. You might want to also add "losing conditions" (if any, or mention it if there aren't none) -- I could see how one can win, but I wasn't too sure what would be the possible obstacles and challenges that could cause a "failure". Also, I love that "punch through the screen" art, not sure what it does yet gameplay wise but it is  very evocative! :D

Your presentation is very clear, concise and thorough. Great job! The idea of "getting attuned" to the environment's needs via music is excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing how your project evolves! Also I'm so happy to see people considering the UI/UX needs from the very start of a project. I think your major challenge moving forward will be to refine this concept of "synergizing" music with visuals, and the appropriate flow/steps to achieve this (both design wise and production wise). This might require quite a lot of coordination between team members to make sure things go smoothly (but you seem to already have a robust plan).

Your document is clear, I do love "interactive infographics" to learn about things, and I really liked how you shared your doubts too (as a fellow solo dev, I relate :D) 

Another ref you could check if you don't know them already: Nicky Case's "Shtuff" https://ncase.me/ especially the https://explorabl.es/ they made some time ago. While they do provide lots of texts, they rely on simple interactions and are very effective. I also very much enjoyed their Fireflies simulation: https://ncase.me/fireflies/

Lovely art and concept! Looking forward to seeing more and playing it. A quick suggestion is to maybe (if you have the time) think about why the mayor in this particular story chose to collect the stars to light the city in the first place. This may help give you more depth to the final conversation and the need to convince him. It can also help you guide the progression (like, maybe some of the other animals have their opinion about why the stars got stolen), leading to some possible reveal in the last conversation/ending.

Impressive work in just one week! You seem to have a very clear direction and detailed documentation. I think I have mainly two suggestions, as a fellow writer here:

- Make sure you don't have too many characters for the story, especially considering the time constraints of the jam. You may want to categorize them as "must-haves" vs "nice-to-haves" in your next steps -- it will be a challenge, writing wise, to make each of their voices unique in a few weeks. 

- Make sure the amount of endings/flexibility of actions each day is also appropriate. Depending on how you're structuring interactions and how time passes forward or not in the story, things can get out of control if you don't set a few hard rules first. (I've seen in more than once in my job and career :D)

Good luck!! This is a very promising idea, I love how specific you went with the setting, and the whole idea about making things more relatable by focusing on the people's stories.

Thank you so much! Been dreaming of making a cooking-related game for years, so I'm very happy to see other folks also enjoying the theme and understanding what it means.

Thanks a ton for reading me! Yeah I tend to research a lot about stuff (started my career as a writer so I could spend an unreasonable amount of time browsing the Internet, heehee). 

Ohhh thank you!!! Your comment means a lot to me! I'm also of Vietnamese descent. Wishing you all the best on your project(s) as well!

Yes exactly! Thank you for the comment, I'm glad my message came across clearly!

Thank you so much for the kind words! :)

Hello there! I've worked in the industry for some time, but it's been a while since I haven't jammed ;). Would be happy to help a team/teams with their writing & design process. I do know a bit of basic programming, especially Construct 2 & Game Maker (and also Twine for text games, if that counts).  I'm currently training myself in Javascript. Oh and I'd love to experiment with Voxel more (but I'm a true noob at this) so let me know if you need a hand for anything :) I'd be happy to contribute to any light-hearted, positive, inclusive, cheerful, or comedy game. ('cause my current work is super dark, so something more colorful would be nice :D)

You can poke me on Twitter if needed: @lecrivaillante

Love your drawings as well! I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to commit to this jam, but if you're looking for a writer/narrative designer let me know :)

Hi! WAG Challenge Organizer here. Can you please provide me your email address? Thanks! :)

@Six Down Studios: thanks for all the details and explanation! :)

Hi there! WAG jury here. Could please add some details about the controls of games? Don't know if it's us or what, but dialogues seem to loop and we cannot open the door...! Thanks!

Thanks a lot @Jupiter_Hadley! :)

Really nice idea! The game mechanics are really fun, especially the kiss thing! I was not sure what the benefit of the sleeping song was compared to the other one, so I killed all the zombies :D

I'm not sure how to win though? Maybe I missed something. I picked all the scrolls and did not know where to go next, and when the time ran out, it was over :D

Anyway, very original take on the subject! Bravo!

Hahaha this was fun, and considering the source material, quite accurate ^^ But yeah I had to check the source material to understand the game properly, so as some have said, maybe add some quotes at the beginning at the game, then some other quote when the player fails, could be a nice way to wrap things up ;)

Thanks @KaraJayne! :) What you said about anxiety is really something I had in mind while making the game, I'm glad you saw it ^^

About a longer version? Heh, why not! :) We'll see!