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What a beautiful well design simple game. The pixel art and level design is fantastic. Your use of colours made it obvious where I needed to go and how to progress the story forward. The story itself flowed really well and was a great use of the theme. 

Only suggestions would be to have a few obstacles,  or parts of the god that need to be collected to extend the story and game play. Also, structurally, it could use a mid point with a point of no return. You kinda have one with the transition into deeper waters, but I’m not sure what you’re leaving behind.  Adding clarity on what you’re leaving behind when you descend could help. 

Overall, a very polished well written game with a well constructed level design. 

You definitely get the award for best animation. Everything flowed so smoothly and the game felt polished. So much of the story was told visually. 

The story was sad but touching. I was hoping for a positive ending, but not all stories need one. 

The timing mechanic was really cool. At first I just thought I wasn’t clicking properly, but I got the hang of it quickly once I realized that was a factor. It added a small amount of complexity. Only suggestion would be to give a bit of guidance that the timing is a factor, because I didn’t realize it mattered at first. 

You have a gift for writing. The story flowed well and you maintained a consistent voice throughout. I enjoyed that each area had different encounters and it wasn’t repeated beats in every direction. 

Only suggestion would be to give the player more choices for responses. After I clicked on the direction, it felt like a while until I got to make a decision again. 

Overall really solid piece. I’d guess your theme is “let love find you,” or “there is more to life than love.” Was I close? 

Fantastic art work, sound design and level design. I was drawn in as soon as I clicked play. I wanted to explore all the different areas and interact with the NPCs

Im not sure if the game wasn’t finished for the jam,  if it’s a bug, or I just didn’t understand the game loop, but all I could do was collect resources and sell them. The cafe, lighthouse, court and spooky castle were all locked out and I couldn’t interact with them. On the map, it’s not clear what the game loop is and I had to figure out I had to collect and then sell things. I’d suggest adding some flashing colours to the boat first so I know I need to go there first. Then once I’ve collected my first round of resources, adding dashing colours to the shop, so I know I need to go there next. Im not sure what the third step in the game loop is because I never got to that point, but guide the player on what to click on at least for the first few minutes of game play. 

it’s a beautiful game with solid level and NPC design. Just need to guide the player on the game loop. 

Overall an interesting journey that flips between dream states and reality. I liked the mystery woven into the narrative, with only hints given and no definitive answers early on. This kept the mystery of the letter and admittance into school a constant unknown element. 

The use of bioluminescent as a metaphor works extremely well for the theme. The story starting out by describing all the ways bioluminescence can be used sets up the rest of the story. Also, casting light on the darkness of a mystery was a theme you expertly referred back to in multiple scenes. 

I was a bit unsure of a few things, which could be fixed by something like varying the colours. 

- dream state vs reality. Possibly having two different background colours would work well for this. Check out the “tag” system in twine.

- links that progressed the story vs links that are background info. Two different colours here would be helpful. 

Also, I wasn’t clear what the goal was after I discovered the password and went for a walk. I got stuck in a section I was sure where to click. 

Overall, a solid twine game, that had a nice theme which linked everything together. 

All these games look amazing. I can’t wait to play all of them and check out the stories!

The dice container will stay Red until you click the flashing button on the right that reads “use dice on…” Once the container turns black, then you can click on the dice.

Also, on smaller screens, you need to find a sweet spot for clicking on the dice, which can take a few clicks to find. 

Hope that helps 😄

One of the more original story concepts. It reminded me of Passengers, only with a galaxy wide apocalyptic event triggering the interstellar travel. Very cool. 

The beginning felt fast paced. You gave just enough context to understand the situation, but left things somewhat vague which kept things interesting. When I exit the ship, it’s an exposition dump. The story slows down here because it’s all questions and no action. My recommendation is to still keep things vague, limit how many questions can be asked, and then get to some action. 

I really liked the story concept and you did a great job of painting a vivid picture of the world. 

Fantastic story. It felt complete with good pacing. The choices gave me a feel for who my character is while still giving me autonomy to chose some direction. The style and fade effect is beautiful. It made reading easy and also added to the feel of the game.

Only thing I was curious about was what mods my character had and how they use them in their life. They seemed to assume mods were purely for employment purposes. I assumed I had one that let me type faster, or do something really boring more efficiently. I’d like to see it in action. I also want to know what the stakes are for turning down the mod application. 

Best narration thus far! 

I loved playing Before Your Eyes, and the fact that you replicated that mechanic over a weekend is ridiculously impressive. I’d love to see how you did this. Would you be able to post a link to your GitHub repo? 

Definitely my favourite play through. It felt polished with a mechanic that fits the story.  Bravo. 

Cool take on the theme. I like the set ups and payoffs. Talking to someone that gives me a knife that I can use later made my choices feel impactful. 

You’re a one person team so I think you accomplished a solid story in the time frame. Only suggestions would be to give some meaning behind why the newest member is taking the lead. Also, this elite team seems to run out of amo quickly. It would help if the player is given a choice that leads to the team needing to fight off a zombie horde, which results in everyone having low amo. Or something Ali g that line. 

Overall, solid work. 

Good use of the theme. My only suggestions would be to make it deviate more from blade runner and add some sounds to up the tension.  Like if I heard sounds that vaguely sounded like a variant getting terminated, I’d question my choices. And if that same sound was loudest at end if I chose to say it’s an android, I’d definitely feel like shit…or maybe not, because it’s vague and the player does t really know what the source of the sound is. 

I also liked the UI. Simple, worked well and easy to read. 

My favourite so in the jam. Really dope story. 

Hi, 
I'm looking really forward to this jam since narrative design is my passion, but the overview wasn't clear on a few things. I was hoping you could answer some questions.

1. Is this a solo jam or can we form teams? If we can form teams, is there a size limit?

2. Can we use unreal, unity, twine, or whatever we want, or is there limitation of the engine?

3. Is there a discord channel? 

4. Where will the theme be announced? Is it on the jam overview page, discord, or some other means? If there is no theme, is there any criteria we have to meet for the story or any guiding principal?

5. Will the judges have visual studios with C++ and C#? I've run into issues when I package my Unreal games and the people trying to play it don't have the dependencies installed, so I want to confirm it won't be an issue. 

I like that everything was a high stress environment since it helped each puzzle fit the theme of taking a breath. The games in each level were fun and the puzzles were well designed. And the art direction!!! Good lord this looks beautiful! 

There was no through line connecting each level. I suggest setting up a narrative to make it not just a random assortment of time sensitive puzzles and instead a group of connected puzzles that needed to be solved in order to achieve a greater goal. Also, surgery is more high stakes than archery, so the order of levels seemed off.  Surgery should be the final level. Something as simple as the player character is student in a elite private school that trains kids to be doctors and today is their big test. The maze is them getting to their class. Not sure how to work in archery, but you get the idea.

There also isn't much of a through line for the theme. If the game is about perspirations and staying calm, then include that shaking feature in the maze level in every level of the game to show that player characters nerves.

Also, the levels took a long time to progress, specifically level 1. Maybe consider lowering the time between start of the game and when the book comes up.

Overall great looking game and the mini games were both challenging yet beatable. Well done!!!

I like that everything was a high stress environment since it helped each puzzle fit the theme of taking a breath. The games in each level were fun and the puzzles were well designed. And the art direction!!! Good lord this looks beautiful! 

There was no through line connecting each level. I suggest setting up a narrative to make it not just a random assortment of time sensitive puzzles and instead a group of connected puzzles that needed to be solved in order to achieve a greater goal. Also, surgery is more high stakes than archery, so the order of levels seemed off.  Surgery should be the final level. Something as simple as the player character is student in a elite private school that trains kids to be doctors and today is their big test. The maze is them getting to their class. Not sure how to work in archery, but you get the idea.

There also isn't much of a through line for the theme. If the game is about perspirations and staying calm, then include that shaking feature in the maze level in every level of the game to show that player characters nerves.

Also, the levels took a long time to progress, specifically level 1. Maybe consider lowering the time between start of the game and when the book comes up.

Overall great looking game and the mini games were both challenging yet beatable. Well done!!!

Sorry, I know its an extra step, but you'll have to download Visual Studios and install C++ and C#.