itch.io

Hi, it's probably due to Apple discontinuing support for 32 bit apps since macOS Catalina unfortunately.

Hey thanks!

It's been so long since I made this, glad people are still playing every once in a while :)

Hi luckfont,

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately it seems like it's a problem with this specific hardware configuration - there was someone else with this issue who had the same set up. I have no idea why it's happening or how to fix it. Sorry! The only thing I can suggest is to make sure all drivers are up to date etc, and maybe try some different resolution settings in the pop up that appears when you launch the game.

Other than that it just seems like the game wont run properly on these 2011 macbooks :(

Sorry I can't be more help

Memory of God

Hi NeaPopicu,

I just uploaded a Windows 32it version of the game on the main page. I never got confirmation that this build works so I hope it does!

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi aLuZiNK,

Thanks for playing!

Unfortunately no matter what you do the end is inevitable :(

However in the follow up I am currently working on, The Stillness of the Wind, without wanting to spoil anything, you will be able to influence the ending to some degree based on how you engage with the game :) Though I can't promise an explicitly 'happy ending' ;p

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Desorbo,

Thanks for playing!

The chime is actual a shrine, you can pray there.

With the stick you can draw in the sand!

Hope that helps :)

Memory of God

Hi bunnygirlk,

Sorry about this. Somehow I thought it would be compatible with 32bit OS, but apparently not. I have made a special build just for you! Here is a wetransfer link: https://we.tl/1XYD5yxjvo

If you could confirm that it all works OK that'd be amazing, I'll then upload it to the game page for all users of 32bit Windows to enjoy :)

And thanks Grebs for swooping in with a solution! I don't know how this would fare on an emulator, luckily we don't have to find out :)

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Speer,

If you just click on things with your mouse, you can't go far wrong :)

You can also press the H key in-game for a help menu if you need assistance.

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi MarcusVinicus,

Thanks very much for the kind words, and the film suggestion! I haven't seen Rams, I'll take a look. Looks great.

I very much appreciate your offer of Portuguese translation, and localisation is something I am looking into moving forward. I'll be in touch :)

Thanks again,

Memory of God

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your review! I thought you did a good job of describing what new players can expect, without spoiling anything.

Great job!

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Kednar,

I have been trying to get a Linux build working for a while now, however I haven't had much luck. 

The issue is I don't have the facilities to test it myself at the moment, so I am relying on the good will of people who also want to see a Linux version.

If it was as simple as ticking a box on compile as it was with mac, there'd already be a Linux version up.  However, for whatever reason the Linux version is not behaving as intended so  it's taking longer than expected, and as a hobby project there's only so much time I can spend trying to work out what the issue is. Stay tuned, as I definitely do want to see it on Linux, however at this stage I can't guarantee when that will be or if it will ever happen :/

Thanks for your understanding :)

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Raithias,

Thanks for sharing your video!

I was back and forth a lot on the subject of a tutorial. However, in the end I favoured not putting one in, as I felt it was more in keeping with what I was trying to do. The idea was that by not having a tutorial it would invite the player to just start clicking around and discovering for themselves how the world works, in the hopes that by doing this the player would "project" themselves into the world more readily, whereas following abstract "gamey" tutorial instructions could lead to a detachment and disconnect with Tikvah. In a typical game where you have to complete objectives or overcome challenges in order to progress through the game, a tutorial makes complete sense and is absolutely necessary. However in this game every action is essentially optional and I wanted to give the player the satisfaction of figuring things out for themselves by virtue of curiosity and intuition as opposed to prescribing what they player should be doing, again in order to enhance the ownership of the experience and emotional alignment with the player controlled avatar.

That being said, I can see now a lot more clearly that some elements in the game are not as intuitive as they should be, leading to confusion when it's not desired. So definitely some improvements to be made :)

Thanks again for the video. Much appreciated.

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Adrian,

Just to let you know I believe I have solved this particular graphical issue that was effecting certain macOS configurations.

Please go ahead and download the latest macOS build, 1.0.2f from the game page, and of course let me know how you get on :)

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Adrian,

Many thanks for reporting the bug.  A couple users have reported a similar issue. Unfortunately I am still yet to find the root of the issue, and so don't have a fix for this currently.

I am looking into it however, and if I find a solution I'll be uploading a new build and make a devlog about it, so stay tuned!

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Daria2b,

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I understand your feeling of the character moving too slow, and sorry you view this as a negative thing. However, all the things you mentioned were by design in order to get a certain feeling across. I think the criticisms come from the game not being what you expected it to be, and perhaps I can explain a little more about my intentions with the game, as what you described is exactly what I was trying to do with this.

 Tikvah is not your typical young, athletic videogame protagonist, and slowing down her movement was important for me to accentuate this point. It would be a very different experience if she could dart around everywhere and get all the chores done super efficiently :) The speed of movement helps reassure players that the game is not designed for efficiency or mastery of mechanics.

Being 'meditative' does not necessarily mean relaxing game :) The act of meditation is an active pursuit and must be practised. It is work for the betterment of ones self. I see meditation as the active choice to detach from your worldy obligations and focus on doing nothing for a certain time. This facilitates a clearing of the mind to essentially reflect on life and ascertain what is actually valuable and what is not, to put things in their proper place in your mind and life. The reason there are more things in the game than there is time to do all these things, is because it forces a decision on the player on what they spend their time doing. Now, you made the decision to skip the letters. That is interesting, as you prioritised other things over the letters but seem to feel some regret for doing this. For me, the really interesting question is this: why did you feel the need to get things done when the game never explicitly told you you have to do anything?

###Spoiler### Life goes on even if you don't do all your chores! In the game, I mean. ###Spoiler###

So, if the goal of the game was to be a nice relaxing game, then yes I agree all your criticisms would be entirely valid. However, for me the goal of the game was to present the player with essentially a very limited sandbox and set time within which to act, but by the end ask the player to reflect on their actions. The key difference being the intention was not necessarily to create an enjoyable experience!

Completely understand your frustrations with the game, however I hope these insights go some ways to understanding the thought process behind the design decisions. And sorry you didn't find it relaxing!

Thanks again for sharing.

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Wolff08,

Thanks for your comments! I'm glad you enjoyed your time with it. There are a few bugs as you mentioned, I plan on  fixing  up the bugs people are reporting, but as this is essentially a passion project of mine it's difficult to find the time. For this particular kind of bug, I've found that clicking the item a few times to drop and pick it up again usually solves the issue.

On to your analysis! It makes for a very interesting and thought provoking read. One of my favourite things about this is reading peoples interpretations. Although it is a narrative focused game, it was intentionally left vague to allow for this kind of interpretation. 

I am of the opinion that there are 3 factors in any piece of work: The creators intention, the piece itself, and the viewers interpretation. Of the 3, I think it is the creators intention that is least important :) Therefore, I think it's more interesting to hear what people think it's about, their own propositions, rather than myself telling people what it's about. So, if you think it's about the holocaust, then it is for you. If someone else thinks it's about industrialisation, then it is for them, too.

If you're curious, however, about my intentions, I can say that I didn't specifically set out to make it about the holocaust. I didn't know Tikvah was a Hebrew name until someone told me after release. The aim was to represent abstract, high level human concepts such as nostalgia, struggle, loss and lack of agency without referencing a specific place, time or event. I think this is the reason that different interpretations are not only possible, but relevant.

Many thanks for sharing!

All the best,

Memory of God

The newest build, 1.0.2, no longer quits when you press f12. Leaving the game is now an option in the menu accessed by pressing esc. You can also delete local save data and start the story from the beginning from this menu.

Thanks for sharing! These are great.

Keep them coming  :)

Hi!

Thanks for sharing your video! I very much enjoyed your reactions and narration, and how your mannerisms change as you gradually realise what's going on.

As soon as you started saying "..this is a more relaxing game" I was like "oh no..." :)

Glad you enjoyed it (I think? appreciated, atleast), even though you were visibly distressed towards the end.

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi Spoonage!

Thank you for your kind words, I am happy you enjoyed it :)

I very much enjoyed watching your playthrough, especially your reflections and insights at 'the end'. Thanks for sharing.

I will try to answer your questions below:

I don't know where your chickens went. All I know is that for Tikvah all that matters is they are gone.

I'm glad you found peace in praying, isn't that enough?

Tikvah needs to eat every day to keep her strength up.

Hope that helps :)

All the best,

Memory of God

Hi all,

In Where the goats are there is no prescribed objective or goal, and many of the interactions are optional (it could be argued everything is optional). This is by design, however as the designer, I would love to hear the daily routines that people have developed, and what you spend your days doing. Do you water the plant first thing in the morning? Or collect your eggs? Do you close the hen house door every night? Read your letters before bed? Pray? 

Please share, I'd love to hear how you all spend your time in the game.

Looking forward to reading

Memory of God

Hi Narwhalsarefalling!

Thanks for sharing your experience. Unfortunately in this game time doesn't stop, it keeps going whether you're at the computer or not. This is by design, however can see this might come as a surprise if you're not aware.

If something like this happens, you can press f12. This will delete the local save data, so you can essentially start from scratch.

Hope this helps, though glad to see you're enjoying it anyway :)

Good job! I'm glad to hear the chickens are in good hands.

Hi Aliz, 

Thanks for your thoughts! I totally hear you on this; there were 2 directions that this project could have gone, and i decided to go down the narrative route as it's more in line with my own sensibilities and the kind of game I'd like to see more of. However, the idea of a goat empire as you described is definitely an alluring one which I did toy with during development, and is something I'd love to explore should the opportunity present itself.

Stay tuned :)

You are a good person :)

Haha, really? Did you wait for all the chickens to get in before doing so? If so I bet you are literally the only person to have done that! ;)

Hi Tamat!

I saw the post on reddit but I'll reply here. Thanks a lot for playing and taking the time to send across your thoughts. I'll reply to each individually.

Sucks that you sold a goat! I know I could have put more work into the UI in general, to make things a bit more logical. Like you say losing a goat is not necessarily a disadvantage and definitely not the end of the world, but I can see the frustration if it's done without realising. I have made it so you can't sell your last goat though!

The daily routine is definitely part of the game, some people enjoy it and some people find it boring. It's a tricky one, as like you pointed out, the boring routine is kind of the point, but if the game gets boring then that's an issue. In attempt to combat that I added in more 'things' than you can reasonably get done in a day, but these are optional (or more optional) and I've noticed generally people not engaging with these as much as I would have liked. 

Yes the blue night is one of the biggest things I wish I could change! Problem is I added in the lights right at the last minute, but the post processing profiles I had set up were done in a way that didn't allow the colour through, and I had forgotten this. Also the way it is integrated means there is a lot of work to go in and try and change it. Hopefully at some point I can find the time though, as I really want to!

This is another tricky one, as again, this is the desired reaction but some people don't like it. I like the fact that you have to sacrifice your "working" time to read the letter, that you have to make a conscious decision to do so, even though it brings no tangible benefit. I am very interested in optional interactions, and what the player sees as the primary objective. It's funny how most people see the making of cheese as the main objective, even though that is not explicitly implied anywhere, although admittedly it is the most developed system. This game was very much an experiment in these kind of things, so great to hear what people think of them!

My thinking was that the chickens didn't die but ran away in the night :)

Hah, yes, good observation, maybe she doesn't like cheese ;)

Other camera angels would be nice,  however due to the scale of the project I had to limit the scope and chose to have a static camera and the story would be of a specific place which you can grow familiar with and see the environment change over time. Early on I deliberated different camera angles but I couldn't justify it from a gameplay perspective, it wasn't strictly necessary for what I wanted to do, so it got cut. This project was done in my spare time whilst working a full time job, so many design decisions had to be made on the basis of time investment.

But yes, thanks for your insights. Definitely agree on most of them, and there is a lot I would do differently if I were to do it all again now, but I suppose that is always the case, isn't it? :) At some point you have to accept it will never be perfect, get it out and move on to the next project, I guess.

Thanks again and all the best

Memory of God

Hey, thanks for sharing. Glad you got some enjoyment out of it :)