Very silly and fun little game! That last painting had me quite stumped I must confess
schwertknappe
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The atmosphere is pretty creepy and cool, finding the weird book just made me wonder what that might have kicked off in the tomb! Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't figure out how to use the inventory when not using chests. So I ended up having leftover oil and didn't know how to use it... Being able to move a little faster would be appreciated too, as well as an option to adjust mouse sensitivity as mine was quite slow.
But all in all you made a neat little exploring experience that I'm sure could be improved by adding more stuff and/or mechanics. Nice starting point anyways :) And the lighting definitely added a lot to the creepy atmosphere and noticing how it slowly fades away can sure make you anxious!
P.S.: looks like we used the same tutorials for some of the environment in our games :D
Don't get me wrong, I still really liked the visuals! And something I forgot to mention is that I also quite enjoyed the "voice over" of the player character :) feels appropriately eerie and strange. I also didn't mind the slow pacing of both the voice and the gameplay itself, it added to the atmosphere of dread and increased the feeling that something was just "off"! Good stuff
Unfortunately I didn't get very far into the game, since the gradual deceleration on camera movements threw me off a little. The visual style also made it a little bit difficult to tell where I would land or what exactly was going on around me.
That being said, I always appreciate strong visual styles! The idea for rhythm based platforming instantly reminded me of the cassette tapes in Celeste and I could imagine something like what working in first person too! I do suck at those rooms so maybe that's why I didn't get very far in your game :)
The visual style also made me think of the game antichamber. I haven't personally played it, but to me the style seems a little more digestible there so maybe you could take some hints from it. Especially the beginning room in your game reminded me Overall it really is a shame I couldn't get far into your game, I'm sure you have some cool platforming in there! Adjust the style a little bit and maybe add an option to change the camera deceleration and I'm sure I'd get to enjoy far more of your game!
Would have loved an option for mouse sensitivity as it was kinda fast for me! Otherwise I liked the other world through the portal and the player's character model. Most of the issues I had with the game were already discussed by others (e.g. not getting how to read the incantation, the vague "weirdest room" clue etc.), so I'll just say: good work!
I think this is a very solid proof of concept! Of course it's understandable you ran out of time, so I'm sure there's hundreds of ways you could improve this, add things and iterate on your ideas, like maybe some rounds with time limits to force you to make quick decisions or hiding the current approve/decline requirements after some time... many possibilities! Definitely a cool idea with a lot of potential :)
I think the concept of your game was very interesting! I did assume from the get-go that the person was the doppelgänger, due to the way the tutorial message was written. Of course it's just a jam game and there's never enough time for anything, but I'm sure this concept would be so cool with multiple cases! So you really are never sure, who you're dealing with, the moral implications of accusing someone of being a doppelgänger when they're not... So many possibilities!
As someone who likes rhythm games, I really enjoyed how you made a bit of a story and atmosphere around the core gameplay. Like others have said, the game can be a little punishing, which maybe contradicts the chill vibe a little.
One suggestion would be to make a larger time frame for a "correct" press and/or have different tiers of "hit", maybe an ok gives you one dollar, a good gives you two and for a perfect you get three. It felt easy to get discouraged, since (I think) pressing too early subtracted two points, but a hit only gave one so it felt very easy to lose everything with a few mistakes :) But overall I think you made something nice and I bet with a few tweaks a lot of difficulty/frustration might be alleviated!
Note regarding gameplay: Since I didn't have the chance to playtest during the jam, I only now discovered a bug where you are able to wall jump weirdly even when not facing the wall. For anyone struggling with platforming: this is not intended and may be the reason you struggle with some jumps. For "correct" wall jumps - try facing the wall when making contact, turn away from the wall and then jump.
Here's my short atmospheric first person platformer: https://itch.io/jam/acerola-jam-0/rate/258054
Thank you for showing off other people's creations!