thearchitect 2021-04-27 01:57
Wow, I swear I do have similar concept idea when hearing about the theme, Goodwork! However, it could be better timer could be stopped when check help page.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → dig deeper
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1275 | 3.30 | 20 | |
| Fun | 1334 | 3.05 | 20 | |
| Innovation | 1170 | 3.02 | 20 | |
| Theme | 1295 | 3.33 | 20 | |
| Mood | 1199 | 3.27 | 20 |
Wow, I swear I do have similar concept idea when hearing about the theme, Goodwork! However, it could be better timer could be stopped when check help page.
Difficult game but I like the concept. A heavily narrative-driven game is audacious for a game jam, good job finishing it!
A narrative mystery text based game in a short game jam is really amazing. Really love the work you put into this game, it was awesome!
wow, that was an experience. I love textbased games and the story really drew me in from the get-go. Solid work
It was hard to keep in mind all the commands, but it was really good time, that I spend in this game. Good job!
It is a real shame I suck at mystery games because I was clueless, I'm curious to see how many people successfully beat the game
CONTAINS SPOILERS. This is great, seems like a compelling and relatively well-balanced mystery. I really liked the pressure of the timed days and the personal investment the game gives the player. I felt like I was very close after a couple of plays, but I didn't have any more leads to run down other than maybe 'inspect'ing every mundane item I hadn't already. I did the woodchuck and nomad "quests" and spoke to the spirit and dug up the grave. This all seemed to suggest quite strongly that Chloe (wife) is the murderer and is using hypnosis for some purpose. The talk of words in the master bedroom led me to believe that I was perhaps being hypnotized into doing the murder (also, the murder weapons are still 'used' even if they're in my inventory, which I think you would have thought of based on the attention to detail). However, neither "chloe / pocketwatch" nor "chloe me / pocketwatch" seemed to be a solution, and nothing seemed to implicate any other character to me.
Very unique! The mood of the game is surprisingly well set up, despite it only being a black background with white text and a font. One thing that bothered me was the text box not being re-selected after hitting enter, especially when it's timed. I think with some audio cues, it would have really got me into it. Nice!
@bmacintosh [SPOILERS] You are so unbelievably close. Question: How much did you interact with the lake?
Thank you for playing my game, I definitely would have added more clues with more time to plan but I mostly just made it up as I went along. Learnt a lot from this game jam.
@colin-misbach Thank you for your feedback. I agree, I couldn't figure out how to get it to reselect the text box after pressing enter. I'll see if I can figure it out for next time!
Really neat concept, I did enjoy playing it and it was well written. If you'll indulge me I have some UI gripes that I'd like to soapbox on for a minute (maybe feedback for a post-jam build): - The intro sequence should not have the text box, I kept on starting to type a command and then more text showed up. I think the text pages over every time you hit a key (maybe?) but I didn't realize that at first so I started typing. - The "help" shouldn't show up until _after_ the intro. You have us memorize a bunch of commands, then do an exposition dump, and then we start the game using the commands we learned earlier. It's nice that "help" shows us the commands, but I think if the help page was shown later I wouldn't have needed to fall back on it. - The location names were very specific. `go toms bedroom` doesn't count, it has to be `go tom's bedroom`, I think if I was specific enough the game should have allowed it. - (screen resolution dependent) It looks like from your screenshot that `Jessica's Bedroom` is on one line, on my screen (4K, 16:9) It was on two lines, making it seem like `Jessica's` and `Bedroom` were two separate places.
All that being said, I really love the look and feel of this game. It's sleek and simple while still being a vehicle for a very deep story.
@notexplosive That's some really nice feedback! I'll definitely take what you said into consideration.
I was initially going to put the help command at the intro, but I couldn't fit it in, still, I should have just made the text smaller.
Likewise, I agree that the commands should have been less specific, the way I coded it was very poor as I was kinda just making it up as I was going.
Thanks for your comments, I'm thinking about making a game similar to this one, so I'll definitely fix what you said here!
Very interesting game! I had a lot of fun digging into the story. The time limit each day helped to show the urgency and made me try to type as fast as I can. Sadly I was unable to find anything new after a few tries very similar to what @bmacintosh described.
Some ideas for improvement: - It would be nice to always show the commands that can be used or add a way to exit the help menu and return to the previous page: I wanted to pick up an item, was unsure what command to use, typed help, then knew the command but was unsure what the items name was. - Auto completion for the text would have been super nice! - Maybe some type of hint system where you could get a hint on what to investigate when you are completely stuck would help to make it less frustrating after not progressing for a while.
Overall a very nice entry, good job.
Really cool idea, a unique one for sure. Like @bmacintosh said, after a few tried I couldn't find anything else :P. Its a really cool idea tho, especially for a jam where people tend to make different games. Tbh, I never even thought of an idea like this. REALLY COOL!
I finished it after about 1 hour or so! Man you forgot to write on -help- command about the -inspect- command! It's only written on the start of the game! I went crazy ahahahha! Anyway that was reeeeeaaallyy cool game! I had so much fun! A background music should help setting the mood! Anyway... Congrats!