Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD42 → Paranormal Investigations: The Darkness
By jesse-titus
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1087 | 2.87 | 38 | |
| Fun | 1179 | 2.48 | 38 | |
| Innovation | 1148 | 2.47 | 38 | |
| Theme | 1256 | 2.06 | 34 | |
| Graphics | 571 | 3.47 | 40 | |
| Audio | 277 | 3.44 | 37 | |
| Humor | 890 | 1.82 | 27 | |
| Mood | 301 | 3.45 | 38 |
Great mood, the idea looks interesting and I liked the presentation / graphics. However, I couldn't understand what was going on at all gameplay wise - game could do with a clearer explanation. Also, this seems to be done with last Ludum Dare's team, not running out of space, but maybe I missed something.
Interesting game, art work is good and audio gave a good mood. Not really fun but that might be due to the style.
We as a team played your game, and it was really fun! It was interesting how you took the theme and ran with it, I think that it was very well done. Also bravo on the graphics, they are pretty awesome in it's self. Great job on being creative, and I will continue to play it! I read it out loud to my team and scared them with the "bang!" by screaming it hahahahaha!
Great art, amazing mood/music. Could have used a way to resize the window. Other than that interesting game play.
I like the kind of atmosphere you are building here
You have all the mechanics working to make a text based RPG, but i think this one is too short. Maybe I've done something wrong but i can reach either good or bad ending in 1 minute ?
it also need some sort of visual/audio feedback when you play a card.
I think you did a great job of setting the mood, especially with the ambient audio of the train and storm.
I found the formatting of the text rather difficult to read. Typically, with things that require reading a lot of text, the text is left-aligned and begins at (roughly) the same place on the screen. In Paranormal Investigations the text is centre-aligned, both horizontally and vertically, so that where the reader has to look to read the text (i.e. the top left) jumps around.
Although the characters were introduced in the beginning, I associated the names with the faces (rather than the positions). When combat began, I didn't find it clear who was being attacked when the game referred to them by name. The card game part felt quite heavily based on RNG.
I played it twice, making very different choices, but with the same ("BAD ENDING") outcome. I didn't see what else I could've done differently and stopped there.
Congrats on finishing what appears to be your first ldjam game! That's already no small achievement!
You have an interesting narrative base here to build off of! I think the mood and tone of your game are very strong, supported by a spooky soundscape. I also find the idea of combining a text adventure and card game rather interesting, however the overall linear structure and rather minimal and randomized card interactions take away a lot of agency from the player. I think if you found a way to develop more player agency in your mechanics, you could have a really strong adventure game on your hands.
I too loved the mood. That being said, it was often confusing what exactly was going on. It also appears that one of the dialogue choices has no effect on the outcome. This isn't necessarily bad, but since there are so few choices it seems kinda unexpected and unrewarding if you play through the whole game again to find the alternate endings.
Dumb question, but is there a way to make this full screen? I can't read the combat cards in windowed mode.
Absolutely fantastic! The art, writing, and sound all convey a consistent mood. The narration sucks you in really well. I especially loved the card-style battles, which reminded me a bit of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. All together, a very solid entry.
Edit: I'd really love to see where this goes if the team continues work on it. Seems very promising.
This seems like a really ambitious project! The illustrations are really cool, but the fixed screen size made it a little hard to read things sometimes. I feel like there were elements of the card game I didn't really grasp.
As someone who's bad with remembering names, I feel like having the names next to the portraits on the bottom would have helped a little with remembering who was who. Overall a really cool submission!
Seems like a pretty cool concept. Would love to see the battle system expanded with a bit more clarity, seemed like it was best to just attack, attack, attack. Good feel and art, just needs some dolling up.
WOW ! I really loved the ideia from this game , the dark atmosphere , music and sound effect ,all very well placed. Nice Job !
nice writing!
I agree with a lot of the other comments. The mood is great and the artwork seems to really work well. I was also really confused by the combat but just ended up clicking on one of the "deal damage" attacks each time and I seemed to kill everything without any problems. I still got the bad ending though and Talbot got his eyes ripped out :frowning:
Nice ambient sounds. The text jumped around a lot and could have been easier to read. Maybe keep it left justified and starting in approximately the same spot each time?
The introduction is astounding. Very nice art and sound, the atmosphere is great. However, I could not really go into the story. I'll try again.
I'm a little lost on where the running out of space theme comes into it... but I really loved the way the visual and the audio come together to create a really strong mood. Great job, especially if this is your first jam!
Interesting game but from my point of view there is a lack of feedbacks during the gameplay sequence The mood is really cool :)
I think some sound effects would have fit well for a better immersion as the game is mostly narrative. Also, I cannot seem to find the link with the theme "Running out of space". Sadly, and to be honest, I couldn't get hooked enough to get a full experience of what this game really is.
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(Sory for double post, something bugged out and cant delete)
Solid entry, good job on writing, art and atmosphere, those are things that come with a patience and devotion. I didn't have much trouble with window size, though I understand why people can complain about it. As for now I only have bad endings, should be more accurate in the decisions I guess)
Nice game!
(Cthulhu brought me here, hehe.) Your game is beautiful, honestly. I understood the link with "Running out of space" as if the situation takes more and more space in the character's minds. Very good entry !