Keep Me Alive

codyhansen 2020-04-21 23:43

You made me work to play this. I just want you to know that. :laughing:

I opened the game, but due to a pop up, missed the opening text. When all there was was a blinking dot with no input reaction, I closed the game and restarted. On restart, there was nothing.

I downloaded the source code and opened it in Unity to even see what I was supposed to have seen. Even looked through the code to see what the heck was going on.

It's an extremely innovative and unique take on the theme. Like a one touch Tamagotchi.

It is very plain and there isn't much going on with it at all. It lacks any substance, but that is what it is meant to be.

The use of theme and idea I enjoy very much! And after having to work to see it, I'm glad I did.

rrrzzz 2020-05-02 19:31

@codyhansen thanks a lot for your review! I do appreciate the effort you put in to understand the concept behind the game and I am really glad that it payed off. Maybe that made the idea come out even stronger ^_^

questlow 2020-05-03 14:24

Like the minimalistic idea and Visuals, leave it running while a Home office day and named the dot Blinky. Sometimes i was sure that the timing from the blinking changed or maybe it got bigger? Kept me longer entertained like I'm willing to admit. Great Game!

rrrzzz 2020-05-03 17:50

@questlow glad you liked it. The blinking actually gets slower as program nears "death" and resets upon input. I didn't think of changing the size but it's a good idea. I think I will try adding growing and shrinking and see how it looks.

xmatos 2020-05-03 17:58

Sorry, the game didn't seem to be working, I'll try again if you have an idea how to make it work. Have a good day.

damdoshi 2020-05-03 18:46

Well, it simple. I won't lie, I'm not a huge fan, but it is a little poetic.

jordyfornow 2020-05-03 18:59

Hey that was a very innovative idea, I must say that my review scale is a bit jagged because there doesn't seem to be any music or graphics (or I just havn't played long enough (let me know!)) These are the ideas that keep you thinking thanks a lot.

adhesion 2020-05-03 20:25

Interesting, I definitely dig this kind of conceptual stuff. My first reaction: Am I really given much of a reason to interact with this? Why do I care about this thing? There's no reaction when I do any input. (at least that was what I thought at first, later I realized that the pulse rate shows how alive it is and input affects that) Is the lack of reaction the point? How much do I give to this thing without getting anything back? In practice, it's a little annoying to leave a whole fullscreen Unity window while I'm trying to play other games.

Then it became: well, now I'm curious to see if anything new and interesting happens if I keep it alive. This is sort of a selfish reason, like I'm only playing for my own interest's sake. So much of playing games is just driven by our curiosity to see what happens. Because there are no real stakes, eventually I'm probably going to get bored. In fact, I might be tempted to let it die just to see what happens, again just for curiosity's sake.

Eventually that was the case and I let the game end. I wonder if it could be more engaging for the player with more audio/visual reaction on input - but again, maybe lack of reaction is the point? I appreciate this if only for making me think about this stuff in general. Nice work!

mark-keeble 2020-05-05 04:03

I really appreciate the unique take on the theme. I think overall some more apparant feedback would be great. I understand the minimilistic nature and why you'd want to keep the dot small, but as you said in another reply, having it start a little larger and shrinking as it gets closer to death would be awesome. Or maybe a tiny bit of screenshake when you interact with the button. Just something to make it at least a little bit more satisfying.

Overall though, really cool submission, good luck bro!

rrrzzz 2020-05-05 09:11

@xmatos If all you see is a black screen you must've launched it once already and the program is "dead" now. You can try on another pc if you have one

rrrzzz 2020-05-05 09:15

@adhesion thanks for the detailed feedback. Giving something back to the player is a good idea. When I read your comment I thought that it would be cool if program "grew" with time and eventually could settle in your pc and launch automatically on startup with small window showing some kind of animation. Like you saved it and it's your companion now. I am definitely gonna think about more intricate progression in subsequent jams

quinn-patrick 2020-05-05 22:53

I admire your willingness to experiment and take risks with your game design. I'll admit that I didn't play it long enough to see if anything happens after you wait, but I will say that it would be more compelling if there was some sort of clear, on screen reward. Like, if the creature were to grow, or talk to you, or if there was a score, although there definitely is value in this minimalist approach, and it would be a shame to see this just morph into any other idle game. You got me thinking, though. This was a cool idea.

james-greenleaf 2020-05-06 15:55

To anyone else on OSX: I had to `chmod +x` the executable inside `Contents/MacOS` to get this to run.

rrrzzz 2020-05-19 21:35

@james-greenleaf isn't that the case with all unsigned mac os executables?