Hi! Do you have any socials etc... I can follow you on? And Would take commission requests?
Whilst I am not in need of any work at the moment, your character style and animations are in line with my usual art style that I strive to achieve. Would love to stay in contact for future work/Collaborations :)
I mainly develop PSX Style games using Unreal Engine 5
This game was oddly addicting and didnt see the time pass as I was playing. It was simple, yet engaging enough. Its as you said, a calming game!
That being said, near the end of the game, it was becoming too tedious in terms of wait time due to the stone not spawning as fast as I would have liked. Near the very end as well, not being able to control which tree the seed would sprout was turning quite annoying as needed White trees but was getting the brown ones. Whilst this extended the playtime by mainly around 10 more minutes? But its what got me out of that addictive trance that I was in whilst playing it.
I really enjoyed the aesthetics and setting of this game! Storywise MIGHT BE too on the nose for what it was going for??? But I havent been able to discover the 3rd Ending to fully be able to render this judgement (Basically did the Passive and Aggressive route, without giving out any spoilers) But it was still very well executed! Ambience and Sound Effects were on point and top notch as well.
This is a solid entry and honestly a great well done!
As for a small bug report; In the HTML version, sometimes the draw distance starts getting wierd, rendering off even the player character, and while the out of bounds areas are clearly marked, they arent blocked off well. A curious player (like myself) can easily navigate between the tall buildings and find themselves outside of that circle.
Hi! Thanks for the reply! It is indeed very helpful ^^ As I would like to try a more Narrative approach this time and wanted to have expectations on a minimum play time to ensure message gets across in a timely but adequate manner :D
Theme, Message and Aesthetic wise this game is on point with the Game Jam honestly. Sound wise, what was there worked, but it felt really lacking. There was a sever lack of Game Feel/Feedback.
While mechanically the game worked really well, I found it lacking in Scope/"Aim wise?". Since I could pretty much skip any and all levels any time I wanted. I couldn't exactly tell, from my end at least, Which fish was healthy and not, so I just killed them all with 0 consequences. Picking up the trash in this game just felt like a chore instead of an actual accomplishment/achievement to be done, and had 0 reward for doing so.
It has great amount of potential, but in my opinion, I would lower the scope of having more levels and focus on making that single level as fun as possible. And this is a game to keep an eye out on post Jam, as from what I have seen, your code is fundamentally solid, its only the presentation that needs more polishing up.
I really enjoyed this game! The card game was simply but has some strategy and risk involved, so I enjoyed this alot. The Narrative was an amazing experience and was indeed hooked into it when the twist came along. Sound track wise was great but I highly implore polishing and fine tuning the sound effects more. The ONLY thing this game lacked was that Game Feel / Juice as they say, especially when attacking. But can be fixed with some better sound effects used and some well placed Camera Shakes.
I'm wondering how long should we expect a judge to playthrough the game before giving their rating/judgement?
Since in the Game Jams I usually join, they are usually expected to only play an Entry for 5 - 15mins maximum, and so games would need to be tailored to that timeframe.
Since in this Jam, there's time to develop a proper short game experience AND that it is expected to be a complete experience; Is there an Expected Game Length? And Will the Judges play the games from start to finish if that is the case?
My only gripe was that I felt the piranhas were too fast/unpredictable to react fast enough. Was getting hit way too often. May I suggest adding in a tell before the piranha's attack to give the player a subtle warning to start dodging.
I really liked the approach of the puzzle design, needing to pay attention to the game story, as well as adding in the cypher which requires some extra research to crack the code. Music / Vibe was great as well.
Personally, I would remove that jump scare in the beginning. As a horror fanatic, it felt cheap and unwarranted, no build up etc.. It just felt it was shoehorned in for just "the lols"
And as a bug report; One thing you should look into; The code entries in the first part do not lock themselves when the puzzle is completed, resulting in actually a multi-pick up. Basically just add a conditional branch to check if Item X has been picked up and if its true, it does nothing.
Just wish to have a confirmation on usages of pre-existing established code; For example; I have a custom camera style that I am developing for my use (already used it in my latest itch Submission) that may be useful for when we can start our development process. I would like to ask if pre-existing template code can be used on these games or if all code must be done from Scratch.
Secondly, can a game embrace multiple themes at once or must it represent only one theme from the list provided?
This game might be a decent, but its marred by not having a cohesive control scheme. I couldn't understand the actual control schematics.
My advise for the future is to either have a tutorial level and go through the actual controls the players will need to press OR leave an instruction manual, preferably in game, but in the description would suffice as well.
An example of such is that the 'A' Key was actually [Z] for me. And I only figured that out due to my experiences playing GB games on PC
Art Style and Aesthetic wise this game is amazing! But It did feel a lacking in execution when it comes to gameplay;
My Main gripes were; The very limited Ammo stacking. For example in multiple times I found around 50x 5.7mm and only been able to take 12 at a time and can only stack 12 at a time. I found that very tedious. I understood what you were going for, but I think the stack of 12 felt too short for my taste.
Second but main gripe; I had no idea when I was actually hitting the enemy or not. The only weapon I ended up using due to an "assurance" of a kill was the shotgun. I had found a Barret M92, was firing both from afar, and within the recticle. I had no feedback whether my shot was a hit or a miss AND why it was a miss (since sometimes I fired at pointblank which should have been a hit).
I believe these complaints may be associated with the Escape from Tarkov inspiration, in which case, it helped me understand the love HATE relationship my brother has with that game, (and proof that Escape from Tarkov is just not for me 🤣)
Gameplay, animation, movement and feedback is top notch! A very well crafted experience!
There were some bugs if I may report; Mainly a noticeable dip in fps when going fullscreen (gave me sever input lag due to it so I had to remove it)
And on the 3rd Mission (the one with multiple beds going up and down) when I completed it I got transported into a room filled with water and I just endlessly float in it with no movement input.
One last thing is; I highly suggest considering a brightness meter for this game, for players to adjust according to their monitors, I got stuck in the first level mainly due to not being able to see the exit right next to me. Not a game issue and 100% a monitor thing.
While the inspirations of Iron Lung are visible, this game is not defined by them and is its own thing as well! So very well done on this aspect! As I fully understand the fine line one must thread from being an inspiration to a rip-off.
The Sub was very smooth and responsive, I actually liked controlling the sub with the scroll wheel, I can't remember a game in which the scroll wheel was used as the main input command so very well done!
My only and honestly biggest gripe was that the control layout of the sub made it into a blind driving test instead of a horror underwater exploration game.
My suggestion is actually do a [Press E to control sub] where it enters in a view that shows the lever, steering, compass and co-ordinate meter, whilst STILL keeping the viewport to the outside of the sub as the MAIN FOCUS. Maintain the Scroll wheel for steering wheel but change the lever to another set up (either left click up, right click down, or W up and S down, whatever you decide would be best) That way the main game horror of seeing what is out there is the main aspect for full immersion.
Other than that very well done!!
Tldr; Amazing game, remove the need for the player to look at the controls for them to work, so that they focus on what is outside the sub.
A very nice game you made! The warning system was an excellent way to add in even more randomization, YET still give player leeway to dodge. Very Well done! ^^
Wow! This is a 5/5, absolutely amazing. Vibe, art, story (and voice acting) and Puzzle all combined well and crafted an amazing experience. I got all the meta references and loved the puns as well.
Yea, while I did stick with pixel style textures for the assets used, I m aware I'm probably at the far edge on what one may consider "Pixel Art" 😂Thanks for the kind words mate 😁
