Glad you enjoyed it! Cats make everything better.
- Samuel
Thanks! We're fans of cats too haha!
I understand the note about repetition. Our thought was that this was inspired by games like Stardew Valley, etc. where you are doing the same tasks and there's some comfort in that repetition. But maybe it doesn't work as well in text, or maybe we needed to find a way to give more of a dopamine hit on those tasks like you get in those games. Something for us to think about. Thanks for the note!
- Samuel
May we all find out raisin debts! :) I loved these two dopey friends, their conversations were perfectly silly. Just a heads up that I did run into a technical issue where I wasn't able to scroll the page if the text went beyond a single screen. I shrank the text size and that got me through most of the story (I think/hope), but I couldn't actually complete it. Still very much enjoyed what I saw, nice work!
-Anna
This is really cool. The atmosphere, vibes, and audio are all on point. The writing is concise, clean, and purposeful, and the central mechanic with the blinking is very excellent.
My only complaint was that I got owned by the Gorgon even though I had my eyes closed, I think it read me wrong! But that's to be expected sometimes I guess!
Really great interpretation of the theme and one of my favorite games in the jam!
- Samuel
I love movies like Aliens and Predator so I was drawn right to this one!
I liked its straightforward genre take and laser-sharp focus. It was nice to have a little Choose-Your-Own-Adventure quasi-game-mechanic with the ammo, too! Very survival horror!
There were several problems with things like its/it's and stuff like that but overlooking that, it was a nice light read.
- Samuel
This was really cool! Great take on using cybernetic eyes for the theme, I liked how this scene manages to be both fantastical and familiar at the same time. Your dialogue was all great, had just the right balance of tension and curiosity as I was reading. But I think my actual favorite line was the one about Nishtar's posture and balancing everything on their head. Made me smile. :) Nice work!
-Anna
I appreciate a piece that's all about the vibes. :) The whole experience made me think a lot about Invisible Cities, so was unsurprised to see that among in your literary references. You definitely matched that Italo Calvino style. Personally, I think writing in the notebook in the bookstore was my favorite bit; I really liked the short poem I composed there. Nice work!
-Anna
Correct, there is no bad ending here! Chill vibes all the way.
And I swear, I double-checked the italics tags five times, retyped them in twice, and I have no idea why they're applying to all the text in that one section. I blamed the gremlins and gave up. :) Thanks for reading it, glad you enjoyed the piece!
-Anna
Thanks so much for your feedback! I get your note about expecting a conflict. Just for context: we were inspired by the play loops of Stardew Valley, where completing satisfying little maintenance tasks every day puts you in a relaxed flow state. That's why there's pretty much no conflict past the beginning. It's all about those vibes. :) But I'm glad you liked the emails; I can't resist doing character bits in my work. Looking forward to trying your submission!
-Anna
Thanks for the playing the game, I'm glad you thought it was sweet and satisfying! I agree, Anna writes beautifully! Re: the dossier, I guess we felt InkJam is not really about challenging gameplay, but we thought it might be frustrating in a classic-adventure-game-combine-the-chicken-with-the-pulley-sort-of-way if you felt like you were trying to read the intentions of the author in terms of what is best. But I get it; you emphasize one thing, and it means emphasizing something else a little less, and maybe something some players might like!
Anyway, really glad you still enjoyed the other parts of the game and appreciate you playing it!
- Sam
I thought this used the theme very well and had a great presentation with the way the lines faded in and the call was broken up into sections. If I had one critique, I guess it'd be that I didn't feel like my choices of what to say had much impact on how things unfolded?
Nonetheless, it was a sweet little tale with some great themes. I enjoyed it!
- Sam
Thanks for playing! I'm sorry you had a little trouble with one of the mechanics. Did you do the tutorial at the beginning in the first conversation, is there anything you'd suggest for making that part a little clearer where it's explaining scrying, etc?
Let us know if you have any other comments or what you think if you play it again, and I hope you have fun!
- Sam
Your visual presentation with the color changes was so unexpected and super effective. That's a real ambitious move for your first IF, especially under this kind of time pressure, so kudos! I had the same experience as distractedmosfet in that I didn't have a sense of actively making choices; I just clicked lines randomly. So while I didn't feel much narrative drive, I did enjoy your cyberpunk atmosphere. Great job!
-Anna