itch.io

You haven’t heard of guitar hero? Oh my gosh the best musical game ever??

Here are some links. Playing with a guitar: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gJedL3O0qeo

This video talks and shows a bit more about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc4YH0nv_90

You could play drums, guitar, etc. The pretend-guitar had the buttons but for example in the Nintendo DS they were just buttons you connected to the DS: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fm.media-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F71ZBiB0cFLL.AC_SL1500.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=374aae30cdb9ebb88a0911ba58d2f3e061cc1d95fea1255bf1cdb7cffc9e65f5&ipo=images

In short: With a few buttons you can make us play drums, guitar, or whatever you want, progressively harder. Yes it’s not the same mechanics - in your game, we are working with memorization and in Guitar hero we are seeing the button we have to press in advance. But we could still rich an fun melodies with your setting.

I think there are some bugs in the TTS options menu. They come at a default volume and rate but if I try to adjust them they suddenly start from zero.

I am a bit confused playing the game without TTS enabled. I think it is a little verbose to describe the columns and tiles though. Which was why I turned it off. But now I don’t understand what the labels at the bottom menu mean.

Apart from that, the game looks really interesting. I like music, so I’d like the chance to play it. But these were a few difficulties I had when trying to play.

I was wondering also where is the bit of the music with the percussions?

And it’d be helpful to have progressively harder levels, starting easy.

Contratulations for the the creative and musical game.

Yeah I wasn’t doing well either in my first try, and I was surprised I went to the second level. In that sense it was too easy.

In the other levels I was doing it at the right tempo, so I didn’t feel this anymore. But the first time I was disappointed that it let me go on instead of making me repeat the level.

Awww, it’s so short! I want more! I hope you keep working on it and get us some guitar hero stuff in progressively more challenging levels :)

I love music so this is cool.

Despite some overall feedback going around in the discord (including from you) that there’s nothing happening, I did actually enjoy my experience. I liked hearing a car’s motor for starters. It’s kinda soothing. And I like hearing, feeling that I’m going through the motions. (well I don’t like it when they’re outside my house but you know, if I’m the one driving haha)

I like the part of trying to be faster.

i don’t really feel immediate feedback to me trying to slow down, though; any key works (which is amazing), but does it only work when I press it when I hear the warning clicks? Can I slow down before, if I want?

Also, how complex are the tracks - or is there only one track?

A way to add challenge would be to have more tracks and levels. Perhaps also some ambience sounds for where we are. That wouldn’t really be a slot car though. But if I were a racing game - how about a track that’s in the desert? And we can hear the wind. How about a race in Paris? And we can hear people cheering for us when we go past certain parts of the lap. Or at some point hear a river.

Like, tracks that have their own details and you feel you’re not just inside a washing machine (lol I say this because the game is playing on another tab but it stuck at sounding like a washing machine)

I like reaching the end of the track and would like more dynamics and clarity on the victory sound, and some way to add challenge to beat records, or keep track of my records. I wonder if I’m faster if I’ll hear it say “New Record!”.

Voice acting would help for the funs.

I think it’s a great prototype, even a great demo that can have much to give.

Also I’d like an option to accelerate (inversely from a button to slow down). Or like a two button interface. Slower / faster. Tap to adjust speed.

I don’t really understand what’s going on. It see some potential, but the time cues and instructions are not super clear.

It’ be fun if we could choose what our animal will be. And choosing a “bot” room and a “humans room, so we could play against a friand without having a bot in the middle.

It’s a creative game that’s for sure. And I like the animals haha.

Beautiful and creative.

I don’t really understand how a TTRPG works, so like some others said I might not be the target demographic here. But I think your voice is really pleasing and if you don’t do voice over work yet you should definitely try to invest into that. I’d love to listen to an audiobook too. You could totally narrate a game as a main character with a monologue all by yourself. Or a story.

I’d appreciate if the voice were a bit more flowy and less paused (between sentences it’s fairly okay, but within the same sentence some pauses sound a little bit off), or simply not be read so slowly.

But yeah, the art’s pretty nice too. Everything evokes a really nice, calm ambience, from the visual to the audio art. Interesting submission.

The game’s sound design is a little harsh - some beeps are much louder than the text-to-speech and harsh on the ears. I think the visuals are excellent to help sighted players orient themselves, and I like the simplicity of the walking / examining mechanics, with only 4 hotspots in each room.

I do think the sound is too harsh for me though, and it’s uncomfortable to keep playing this way. Let us know if this is fine-tuned, please!

I think it’s a nice touch to make such a simple game mechanic richer with a little introduction, with an enticing goal (learning the secret fact about the character if we reach the last level), and having a credits song at the end, along with an introduction and ending bit.

I don’t know if the mechanic ties with the story - I would like to see it tie with the story somehow. But I think as a puzzle it’s nice and pleasing in itself. It’d also be richer with a real voice over, which I think you could try finding someone to do it.

I would make the sound for clicking the arrows keys less high-piched as it was a little itsy bitsy screeching in comparison with the TTS speech.

Nice one, simple but effective and pleasing to play.

Nice game. It’s a real RPG, quest-like. I found the music immersive and some bits about the story were also nice. I would say I would enjoy some more bits of story and even perhaps being able to walk between “battles”. Like if we could actually progress in the story not only by being in battles but also doing other stuff. That would be for a longer game though, I understand there are limitations for a jam. And in that sense, I think the game was actualy pretty long for a game jam, and very complete!

Some things I thought. I struggled with switching targets and didn’t understand how to do it, or what was going on when I tried to do it. I don’t think it ever worked. As someone mentioned in the game page, it would be important to hear their voice when switching the target. Perhaps a better way would be to tab between targets, or like a hotkey to switch between targets.

I had some gripes with the pause screen. Particularly at the start I was pausing a lot to process the instructions, but the voice saying “Press the P key to resume the game” every 2 seconds was quite disruptive and going against the very reason I was pausing the game. I think this voice isn’t needed, and saying “Pause” would suffice. Or if anything saying that indication about how to resume the game could be there every 15 seconds but not as often as currently.

Some things I love:

• The fact there is a pause button at all!
• The subtitles. Extremely helpful. If improving the game you should think about them for the battle mode as well (so we can get visual cues to when someone’s healed for example). Plus displaying who’s talking in the captions.
• The visual cues I can look at during the battle. I ended up switching them off because trying to follow their voice and button mashing was more helpful and I wanted my imagination to work more than seeing the colorful cubes! But it’s great that they were there.
• The tutorial and the learning of the spells is very friendly and progressive. There weren’t several concepts introduced at once.

Some things that were confusing:

• I think I mostly just clicked every button in sequence without a proper strategy when I was in the battle. Since I didn’t really know the status of my friends nor the enemies’ and since I didn’t understand how switching target worked, I was just button mashing and trying to face a friend, especially the female voice who I knew to be weaker.
• In the tutorial, I was confusing when I first heard the “bump” sound when I tried to cast a spell but wasn’t facing my friend directly. That is because when I was rotating I heard him confirm I was facing him, but I must have clicked on the arrow key one extra time. So I heard him confirm but ended up not facing him when i actually stopped rotating. So i didn’t know why sending the spell wasn’t working. Perhaps it’d be nice to have a hint that we need to be facing him directly for the spell to work.

Great job, I hope it can grow more!

Great! I can’t wait for that. I definitely want to try it when it’s updated because I was having so much fun. And I can’t hope to enjoy just as much the remaining of the game.

Personally I think to throw out the cup F is easy to reach, just like D. F has the little bump dot and it’s close to the spacebar and it doesn’t need much acrobatics.

Shift is not as comfortable as those but would be slightly better than Ctrl (in that case I’d put Help in H, which is also a standard help button).

But I will try Ctrl just like you said!

Oh I saw it in the description but with eyes closed I can rest them (plus if I get lost I can take a peek) :) but I think it’s cool to have that option.

To me, as a sighted player, I had some trouble with the tutorial, starting with the text to speech not reading some words but spelling their letters out and continuting with the amount of information to take in without being able to pause or navigate (or listen again to specific lines of instruction). Unfortunately, and with it being a more abstract game, I think this was enough to make the experience difficult enough to not feel the abiity to push through. I think fine-tuning on this would be a good addition.

Perhaps for gamers who are better at parsing a lot of audio input this would not be a problem. For me, it was. :(

The concept is interesting. I like survival games. The way it’s done though… I think it’s too reliant on sounds and it’s a little difficult to absorb everything so fastly in the tutorial.

I had to restart the tutorial because I couldn’t understand some instructions. Then I got to the first house, and still needed to re-listen to some instructions. I decided to just let it go and keep going. Later on I found a new instruction and wasn’t able to understand it. I feel to me it’s also too reliant on memorizing a lot of different sounds without getting an extra tip in words. Which is cool, but I think too steep for me to learn. I think it is in need of some polish for usability an learnability. Some captions might help for sighted players.

I think it’s very creative as a concept to have a survival one-button game. It should be developed upon more. It seems to have a lot of diverse things to interact with. I would love to try again if the tutorial could possibly be more fine-tuned. Maybe the option to hear word cues for the stuff we’re interacting with.

Then again I’m sighted, perhaps it was too much for me but I see it seemed simple for others.

Anyway, good job and keep it up.

I couldn’t find you on Discord so here goes a long feedback:

First:

Ohmygosh ZOE!!!! You are SOOOO expressive. I had a lot of fun in the tutorial at the start. She can sound a slightly condescending in one line, but not in all. The process is mostly really funny and engaging. I had a laugh when I threw the cup away, and also when she came to pretend she was a costumer and made her voice deeper. I was also amused at other times, for example when she mimiced the espresso machine sounds.

Mechanics-wise:

• I would use a different control for throwing out the cup. Ctrl is a bit out of reach for my fingers.
• I am missing a command to listen to a line again. Specifically with a reminder about what the costumer asked for. Still in the tutorial.
• There is also some fine-tuning to be done regarding when we have the wrong coffee.
• Plus there is no way to skip the tutorial.

Here’s what happened in the long version and my full feedback. I was so amused at listening to her pretend she was a costumer that I missed what she wanted. So I didn’t know what she wanted.

And apparently if I have a coffee that’s the wrong one she keeps going “wap-wap”. So I’m stuck here fooorever?

Which leads me to dread that I might have to listen to the whole intro again when I try to restart.

I may have found bugs. Here’s what I did:

1. Get medium cup. Make double espresso. Try to give it to the lady. She will go “wap-wap”. Now go get a big cup. It will make the sound of getting the cup, but how can I have it if I’m still carrying the other one? Bring the cup to the espresso machine and double press space. Nothing happens. Try throwing it away. It doesn’t always respond to that. Go get the big cup again, go back to the espresso machine and try making the coffee pressing double space. I hear no feedback. I opened my eyes and saw two coffee beans and a checkmark. How, if I didn’t hear the audio feedback for that? I guess it has a checkmark, so I’m bringing it to my costumer. But she goes wap-wap again.

The music is chill and pleasing.

Restarting, I think it would be an excellent addition to have her say “Do you need some instructions to get around here? Press the up and down arrows to decide.” - then if we say we don’t need instructions she’ll say “Do you want a practice test where I pretend to be a costumer?” and we can do the same.

The game has so much potential, but these bugs (no reminder for what the costumer wants, these functional bugs with no audio feedback for what’s happening and the no way to skip the tutorial) are unfortunate events that got me dreading a little to try again. I think I would love to try again but I don’t trust I will always know what the costumer wants, so I wonder if this could be fixed for the end version of the game?

Amazing work, keep it up.

Yeah I thought the same, like a swish/swim sound.

I like the title screen’s design. Although the tides over and under letters can be a little too much - a few less might get the idea and work more effectively - It feels so dreamy and childlike, and like I can dive into this imaginary world and be carefree. (For those who can’t see, the letters are round-ish, and they look like they shine. The screen and text are in shades of blue. Around most letters there is a line resembling a wave or tide).

The story is also extremely cute and enticing. As soon as I read the summary, I fell in love with it. The theme and the mechanics and the story are immediately matching for a promising game.

I can’t wait to play it once I find my earbuds that are unexpectedly missing - but I think VibeVerse might be right: some background ocean sounds would be a great addition.

Edited to add: Amazing sound design, tied to the setting very well. I agree with Jaogwal and VibeVerse that we could use some more sounds for immersion in the background, or moving swimming/swishing sounds, and I’ll even add audiodescriptions for passing by interesting decorative hotspots, like “You go past a school of Amazon puffer fish”. Sort of like a trip in the ocean. For a more relaxing experience; I doubt that’d work with higher difficulty levels.

I had a question about the score: I hear it say I was just “under 300”, but I was complimented on it. I don’t know exactly my score, and i wish I would know it. Since you recorded all of your voice lines I can see how impossible it’d be to achieve that, unless you found a way to match like “396” - knowing that a three in the hundreds house would read as “three hundred”, a 9 in the tens house would read as “ninety” and a 6 in the units house would read as “six”. Maybe that way you’d be able to let us hear our total score by combining things around, but it might be a ton of work for little reward. I just felt that was a bit confusing, as I don’t know what the meaning would be. Of being “under 300”. Plus if I get a slightly better or slighty worse score next time I wouldn’t know.

Amazing concept, great work.

I haven’t tried it with someone else - only alone. It seems fun as a concept and the simple visuals and mechanics are also appealing. A few things I noticed:

1. “Turn” is being read as T U R N, separate letters, which is confusing. I only realized what the word was when I was writing this review. All I was hearing was “T you are in”. Then when writing it down was when I realized it was spelling the word.
2. I thought this would be a memory game where we start by selecting letters but then eventually we have to remember what letter the other person (and us) chose already. This is interesting and fun at its core concept without adding extra stuff. But you add some stuff for spice, presumably. My question is: I don’t understand why some letters start as green and some don’t. Like in my first turn I can set a trap without knowing it. This isn’t explained in the instructions. I also don’t quite understand the purpose of it, and would like to know the reasoning behind it (adding more challenge is a good enough reason!)
3. On the same note, I don’t know how to check at the start of each game (if playing without visuals) which letters are already green or not. Unless I’m not supposed to know and it’s random and secret at the start of every game.
4. Also, I can’t play the downloadable version for some reason? I can’t find the game file. If it’s “workermain” it gets an error.

I also think it could have a collaborative version if you think about upgrading the game. That could be super fun. And hopefully some online version when you have the resilience and wish to break your brain trying to figure it out! Haha.

I like it, it’s simple and effective. Unfortunately I don’t really know how to test it with a friend because it has to be in person… but if I can snatch someone I’ll come and edit the rating if I have something to change. :)

Very many congratulations for the idea and achievement of making a fully accessible multiplayer game.

Thanks! It was very fun.

Great game. I never figured out how to heal units though. Having a score at the end would have been nice as well. Overall I think it was a very creative game and very enjoyable.

Very good music loop, with enough variety and engaging. The sound design of the game is also very pleasing and definitely enriches the gameplay.

Thanks so for your feedback and for playtesting for us! Your experience and perspectives are really valuable, sincerely. And I’m really happy you got to play it all on your own and enjoy it, even if, unfortunately, while needing some sighted assistance.

We are aware of the problems you mentioned and I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to fix (it’s just a jam game after all), but rest assured I will let you know if they are, in any hypothetical future update. Thanks once again :)

Honestly I totally understand. I hope you get to try it again when you feel better!

I think it wasn’t too straightforward, but building up more on it, from the perspective of the player (like how much we were learning, etc) would make it more subtle and also build up to the character arch of wanting to avoid making mistakes, and wanting to help others with them. But I felt it was fun and subtle enough for me to smile and have to “figure it out” myself. But I also felt it could have more build-up and connection to our personality and arch.

I found it very enjoyable. And to be honest I think I’d have figured out the name puzzle, I just didn’t feel like 1) counting numbers of the alphabet, nor 2) try to figure out the order, nor 3) after all that, still possibly fail. lol ah, when I said you lacked playtesting I was joking too haha.

I think I’ll probably pass on the horror game, but if you make a “action not horror” sequel I’d be happy to play it. Thanks for the recommendations!

Ha, I got to the end. But you needed more playtesting… I found the name by simply jumping to the letters and by trial and failure… I found the ending funny. It sounds like a twist. You become the monster you hated. But in a funny way though. I really enjoyed the game. I’d play more of this. Very creative.

Cute, I like it.

Well the box disappeared and I wanted to use it to solve the puzzle. Maybe it’s not needed to solve it, but… I thought it was, and I could not pick it up again. Yes, the red button that leads to a corridor. I’m trying to keep the door open and tried to use the box to “keep it open”. It wasn’t working then the box disappeared into the wall when I dropped it.

I found a bug. If I bring the box to the button, (maybe need to be crouching) and drop it there, it might disappear behind the wall.

Thanks. I hadn’t figured out I could drag that thingy to the controls panel. That was why I was so stuck. I think I’ll do a good job from now on!

Yeah, I get that. I tend to be the player who needs more hints, so I’m not surprised :) Maybe someone will give me a hint in the discord. *Edited to add: Also the simple fact you made this demo and finished it in such a polish way is impressive regardless!

Well, if you’d like more detailed feedback I’m in the AdventureX discord. No use talking about it here. I’d spoiler everyone just explain exactly where I’m at!

Rest assured though I’m pretty bad at figuring out the logic in point and click games. Getting stuck is a common experience for me.

Gorgeous. I like how the music fits the setting perfectly - that and the art. That and the items we’re given to work with are enough to leave me intrigued. It’s cool that we have to “work” to get them, too.

Unfortunately, me and adventure games are a difficult combo, even though I like them so much. I have several thoughts about how to solve this puzzle, but none has worked so far. Maybe I’m pretty close to the solution and it’s right behind the corner!… Well, it’s really well-done demo overall. though.

I like your blog and the project you’re doing. (I just played the game from Cyd’s recommendation and after playing came to read the comments). I’m curious about your project especially since you haven’t published games of your own in itch. Well, good luck and good work with it.

I have! I get a lot of hints. Even the witch is telling me to talk to the eel. But I can’t figure it out. There are so many rules and laws.

Jogável apenas no Firefox, parece-me?

Acho super interessante. Gosto muito do modo como a vespa ajuda a formiga a avançar, com o stereo. Tenho dificuldade em perceber onde está posicionada a formiga porque o som dela não tem stereo. Talvez um efeito sonoro quando batemos contra a parede também ajudasse. Além disso, quando jogo com a vespa, o movimento para cima e para baixo não é super intuitivo.

A introdução está muito engraçada mas, como a qualidade do som não é a melhor, seria óptimo ter umas legendas para ajudar (ou talvez gravar um dia novamente com um microfone mais avançado, ou pedir a um actor?)

Excelente projecto, parabéns.

This is like Portal with cute (CUTE!!) blobs. I wouldn’t imagine I’d end up calling them cute but I just did. I like to seem them happy and satisfied. [spoiler alert?] I’m sad they are being treated with strange experiments. I think the game could get some fine-tuning regarding UX, and I don’t know if you have any ambitions to continue developing the game but, nevertheless, it was a good experience. I’m happy I could finally meet the blobs!

Wow, a playthrough video on youtube! Thanks for sharing it! :)

I downloaded it and it looks great, and is very creative. I guess I noticed too late I could skip dialogue with left-clicking (found in the options), and had time to become frustrated first. Yeah, I think that is the bit where I get stuck because I’ve been been that good at P&C difficult puzzles. I can see several possible solutions to advance and try to trigger them with the rules I choose, but nothing really happens. The closest I’ve been to get something happening was… with a mirror.

I love the art. I love how the characers are characterized. I think the story and creativity you opted for with the rules and, well, what happens with that book, are really amazing. I am sad to be stuck as I’d like to get further!

Oh, also, I really liked the bit about it being playable on mobile! That’s something very cool.

It looks very simple, but it’s very effective, and the art is quite pretty too. I don’t think I’d ever seen something like this - an interactive graphic novel… or a gamified web comic. But I enjoyed the little clicks I had to do and I think the sound design helped bring it life too.

The lock was also a helpful clue about what I needed to do, the first time a puzzle showed up.

I think the only thing I would like more is to feel like cherishing more the beautiful illustrations. I kind of get in the mood of knowing more about the story. But that happens every time, even without interaction in the midst! Maybe let me know when the chapter 2 and 3 are finished. I am eager to see more.