This is an awesome game! Loved the concept and voice acting. The ending was very clever.
Almighty Abbadon
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Decent (3/5), but definitely not EMIKA's best work. Summer of 58 was definitely the best of the bunch and I quite liked Father's Day and Locked Up too. The recent games are still enjoyable, but a bit lack luster by comparison.
This game has some really annoying visual effects that I couldn't turn off. I think they were meant to be night vision/VHS camera effects, but they were way more distracting in this game than in other games with those visual effects. The effects disappeared when in loading screens and during certain parts of the game, so I'm presuming the effects are intentional. In future, please tone down those effects or at least give the player an option to turn them off.
The English text is also pretty rough. You'll understand the story, but just barely. There isn't much text, so I'm guessing you could easily find a native English speaker online to proof read the scripts for future games for little or no money.
Interesting concept, but the console commands are very tedious to use and rapidly drain away the fun. I got to the "Can you hear it too?" part, but then it wasn't clear how to advance and I wasn't interested in messing around with the command system to try a bunch of options. I recommend toning down the console command aspect. For example, don't require the <>, make it not case sensitive, and remove the need for the user to constantly use the arrow keys to move their cursor to the right spot in order to type. Also, please give more hints on how to advance in the game.
I'll also mention that I'm too young to have played text based PC games back in their day, so my only experience with them is in nostalgia horror games like this one. Therefore, perhaps the way you setup the PC in the game is accurate to the time period, but I still recommend making it more user friendly. Many players are too young to know how games worked back in the text game floppy disk era. The other horror games I've played in this style just have the text commands follow a basic grammatical structure like: USE HAMMER ON DOOR, LOOK AT BATHTUB, GO TO KITCHEN, etc. That makes it much easier for players.
I liked to Lucy and Unknown Tape, so it was disappointing that I couldn't figure out this game. However, I'll check back in the future to see if this game gets improvements.
Pretty good for it's length with some solid scares. Great job!
Just a heads up to the dev: you can break the game by going into the alley to the right of the doors and walking against the boxes in the back left corner of the alley. You end up in the level on the other side of the four doors. You can interact with one of the doors and you end up in the crime scene room but the objectives get all messed up because the game thinks you've already put the VHS in the VCR even though you didn't do any earlier objectives. I tried to enter the dark room where you get the VHS and the game froze completely. I had to force close it. At first I thought this was some kind of secret, but the game freezing makes me think that it's a glitch.
Thanks for replying! I agree, I played "The Lost Fear" on the same computer and didn't have any optimization/FPS issues. The only issue for that one was screen tearing due to the lack of Vsync.
Thanks for looking into adding Vsync for your future games! I think it would improve the experience for a lot of people.
Good game. I liked the atmosphere and level design, plus it has some great scares.
However, it has some major optimization issues. Based on my computer specs the game recommended that I put everything on Best/Far, but that resulted in getting 8 FPS. I figured out that it was the Shadows setting causing the issue. I turned Shadows down to low and left everything else at Best/Far and then the FPS was fine. Therefore, there's likely an issue with the way the Shadows were done on the higher settings. Also, for future games please include Vsync. It's very important for those using ultra wide monitors. Without it, there's lots of screen tearing.
This game is awesome! The jump scares and atmosphere are very well done. It's definitely one of the better PT style horror games that I've played. Thanks for making it!
Thinking about future games, I think you could better maintain the tension with strategic use of music and sound effects. This would help ensure tension is maintained between scares. For example, if the player is walking down a hallway hearing sounds from behind them or from behind the doors helps build dread. There were some parts of the game that went almost completely silent, which I think hurt the horror atmosphere because it gives players a break from the building tension.
Pretty good game. I liked the visuals on the dream sequences. I guessed the ending immediately, so I would've preferred you took an alternative direction with it, . However, I get that would change the whole theme, so if the theme is the primary reason you made it, I get why you want to keep it the way it is. However, in future I would recommend making things a bit more cryptic, so the twist isn't so easy to guess.
*Spoilers*
People are presuming that the guy is her real dad, but I wonder if the dream sequence where she picks up something and then a huge figure grabs her is indicating that she was abducted when very young. So young that the memory is hazy and not fully formed. I've read that memories don't really solidify until at least 3 years old, when we have more understanding of the world. So anything before that would be a formless blur, like what we saw.Just speculation, but it would explain at least one of the dreams and maybe all of them if you think of them all as half formed memories of a kid under 3.
Decent game, but, just like Shopping List, the pacing is terrible. The game is way too long for the amount of plot/content. It should be half the current length. In particular the side character flashbacks and long epilogue are completely unnecessary. You have a tendency in your games to over explain the story, which wastes time. If you gave them the necessary information, trust your audience to be smart enough to work out the plot without every single plot point being explained to them in detail.There also aren't any good scares in the game, so it's more of a thriller game than a horror game. Still, I liked the game overall.
Cool game. You did a really good job with the sound design and the jump scares were surprisingly effective considering how basic the monster models are. It can be a bit confusing how to advance, particularly in the staircase section, but I eventually got the event to trigger and made it to the ending. A shame this game got canceled, but it still works as fun standalone experience and is great for what it is. Definitely worth experiencing!
Just a heads up for people who don't know, you can full screen the game using Alt+Enter. For me it initially launched in a very small window, so that option was important. Hard to really get immersed in a horror game when it's in a tiny window.
Anyway, cool game! I liked it. The "Someone's Coming" mechanic was well done.