I made "Tooooo Another Plaaaaace!" a soundboard item on my home discord server, as a button to click to announce your departure from a voice call.
I also have said it out loud on other servers for the same purpose enough times that the echolalia has spread, and I am directly responsible for at least 5 folks now doing the same. Whenever they ask "what is that even from?" I send em here.
Toooooo Another Plaaaaaace!
This game is astounding. Plate spinner games rule.
I started out thinking to myself"I'm going to make Daggers McBlack a person who texts while driving, but I'm going to pick at least semi-reasonable dialog" and loved that it quickly devolved into "all of these choices are awful, daggers is a lunatic, ah well, I'm going to propose to my tinder date that I've shared 3 sentences of conversation with yolo"
Good stuff.
You can get shot by the homeowner with a bow if you enter their house, causing THE END and restarting the game. No noticeable after effects.
the dragon says nothing
the glitch says different things depending on the angle you talk to it from
the priest tells you to leave, and prevents you from going behind them (can't find any way to do so regardless)
HIDDEN STUFF:
If you move DOWN OR UP after entering the front door tile of the home owner, their arrow will miss you. approaching will get them killed by the glitch, and depending on what tile you enter on, they may say "PLEASE DONT KILL ME." Doing this causes a kill screen with the glitch, and then a softlock on a (C)OFFICIAL ELECTRIC screen.
NEEDS INVESTIGATING:
If you IMMEDIATELY exit out of the homeowner's house after safely entering it, you can see the arrow continue to sail past outside, toward the glitch. however, simply walking left toward the glitch after does not show any sign of damage, and no discernible effects.
Anyone else find anything more?
SPOILERS:
Gotten 4 endings so far! One for Information, one for escape, one for double murder and escape, and one for a deathloop.
Still investigating, wondering if there's a way to the chest, the relevance of the dancing sketch outside the window, and the strange clearing to the south that I can see while wall phasing.
Update:
Hmm, the window sketches are your death or restart count, to a limit. Cant find any way to interact with it still though.
I wandered around this world tonight.I tried typing. got some responses. found I got more responses if I used words present in the comments from the paintings.
worked out color coding behind the messages, grey for "Unrelated to you/white noise" green for Yours, and blue for Response to yours, which copies a word that you used for the start of the response.
Found I could get stuck if I force myself behind the cables to the right side of the computer (?)
and finally, found a singular word that results in a RED entry on the feed.
the word "HELP"
As much as I tried pausing the feed, sprinting around using shift or middle mouse, I couldn't find a way to climb just that little bit higher to get on top of the computer. I dreamed that I could climb up, set foot on one of the entries to the feed, and ride it to freedom, to the outside. Fantasies of escape for a room with none.
Being from 2022 makes this game resonate. I've been dilligent in staying isolated for multiple years now. Locked in a room, looking at the complete nonsense of conversation flowing by, getting replies to me calling out in the only way I can, only to see the responses are all meaningless.
But in the back of my head, I still wonder. Can I escape? Is this a puzzle? Is this a test? Or is this just a mirror being held up? Am I typing this just out of hope of getting some additional bit of info, someone else who's played this, who's found more than me? I don't know.
Have any of you all gained freedom from the room? Or are we all in this together? Seperated, but united in the inability to escape?
1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?
Greetings, my name is Casey, and go by the handle ColorInvert. They/Them.
2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?
I did not, as my schedule and personal life has had high priority leaving me little time to focus on... anything, really. As of January though, the rush is over, and I'd like to use this chance to prototype out an idea I had for a future project.
3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?
Yume Nikki, .flow, Bad North, TORMENTOR X PUNISHER (ultraviolence/language warning on that one), Murasaki Tsurugi, Beat The Art Breaker, and Crypt Worlds to name a few. Always loved surrealist mood pieces, "condensed" versions of a genre polished to a mirror sheen, and most of all, experimental hybrid genre mixing. For this jam I will be doing... None of those!
4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?
I have significant practice with Game Maker Studio 2, am dabbling and getting acquainted with Unreal Engine 4's blueprinting, and experience with Python.
5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!
Gamefeel. I used to believe that if the gameplay isn't good, then the whole thing isn't. I now feel the absolute polar opposite is true. It's possible to make a game where you click once, and if you do good enough with the visuals, sound effects, screenshake, distortion even just that will be immensely satisfying. I could write a full dissertation on TxP's visual and sound effects bring a typical arena shooter into something completely incomparable. It's also something I need to practice.
6. What are your goals for this game jam?
They're very specific this time! I am making a golf game (minigolf game?) with an unusual control scheme, that will be 1 bit (black and white, no greyscale allowed) and be entirely at the resolution of 400x240. I will not confirm or deny any reasoning I have for these limitations.
9. What are some of the past works you've made for the jam? Show off your favorites!
I have made 3 games, released on itch, created for previous version of MFGJ. From oldest to newest, they are:
Here's the Kicker, a prototype of a single button action game about kicking ... rectangles, and plate glass windows.
The Jacka**tronaut, a 2 button plus mouseaim arena shooter in space where each blast of your shotgun pushes you back, and you have no other direct method of movement.
Nest Defender The First: The Start Of An Empire I asked my sister to provide me with a game idea, unprompted. I then made it for her, as a surprise birthday present, and that's what this is. Can You Figure Out How To Play As The Locked Character???
Language barrier is a single quest, primarily linear RPGmaker game about misunderstandings.
My goals for the jam, time willing and sorted by priority, are:
I have never used RPGMaker before (I primarily use GMStudio 2) so I'm figuring stuff out as I go.
Due to the unreadable nature of the final game, quite a bit of care will need to be taken for character animation and related scripting, as the player needs to at least vaguely understand how others are reacting to them, hopefully without using emote bubbles as a crutch. Regarding dialog trees, I'm thinking that the protagonist, if asked a question is only capable of nodding yes or no, and the only idea on what you're responding to is your best guess based off of context.
I already have a storyline drafted out in a document that should be bite-size enough for a gamejam entry, that with additional context gained through the secret ending, seems like it could be pretty neat.
How dev has been going so far:
I entered this jam with the plan of using hand drawn art on physical paper for the sprites in game. This was going to be done by printing out the default sprites, putting 'em on a light box, and tracing over with Sharpie to then scan back into the computer. However, it appears that VXAce only allows tiles to be 32x32, which seems too small for the hand drawn nature of everything to show up. Probably will still draw a few that way and post them here as a proof of concept, but alas. Gonna redraw on the computer using paint.net or something and see how that looks, monochromatic. Maybe a bit like OFF.
Initial plan for text ruining was to open up the game files, find the sprites for each letter, and re-draw them with custom symbols. I quickly discovered that no, the game uses actual font files, as microsoft word would. Currently investigating if I can find a font type that renders text unreadable, and if not, replacing all text with mojibake is an option. (Wingdings might make a good placeholder, but is too silly and well known for what I'm going for)
Delicious videos:
Opening the editor for the first time, and throwing events and interactions at it to see what happens to get a basic feel of how RPGMaker functions. There's a lil more added since this was recorded, I'll see if I can grab that too.
Rough draft of the opening of the game, after the first day of development.
More dev logs will be posted pretty frequently, gotta help a few people move furniture over the next few days, so not perfectly sure if I can hit daily updates.
I think that covers everything.
A few bugs I discovered while playing, starting with the most major one:
and a couple of harmless visual bugs I can't seem to recreate:
