A Year of Rest

darthboseiju 2021-10-05 15:26

Quick couple of bugs- I managed to walk out the wall of the grocery store after buying cigs, having missed the door. The floor in your lobby was jittering for me - not sure if me or the geometry.

Aside from that. I found the TV really unpleasant (in a good way, i think) and i'm interested in giving the book a read! There was more in the world than I expected, although the health ticking down when I got hit by a car and by walking into someone made it feel strange when my health (?) hit zero!

mithoskuu 2021-10-05 15:57

I wasn't able to exit the doctor's office, going through the door seemed to put me back in the transition hitbox

samuel-hollywood-summers 2021-10-05 15:59

The absence of sound made the game feel quite empty and eerie. I enjoyed the nighttime visuals outside with the glow from the windows. I think the whole thing would be more impactful if you concentrated on a smaller area and added the detail (sound effects, etc). The distance between interactable objects outside could also be smaller, as walking between them can feel like a chore once you have done it once. A rich soundscape of cars, buzzing lights, and the movements of characters might help make traversal feel more enjoyable. Impressive scale. Thanks for sharing.

cubanfrog 2021-10-05 16:06

While the game was quite buggy with AI pathfinding and occasional dropping from a wall into another dimension, the game was quite ambitious in scope. While I haven't heard of the source material, the central theme became quite apparent. The gameplay loop definitely does message the general idea clearly. I managed to get through September but then the characters cigarettes ran out and store also didn't want to sell them as they were out, so I'm not sure if I locked myself out of the rest of the game. I liked the visuals of the game, but the game definitely would have benefitted from some audio. A very interesting concept indeed, great work!

binary-systems 2021-10-05 16:09

@darthboseiju Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked the world, this is my first time making a world in a genre like this and I had a lot of fun crafting it. Also glad you find the TV obnoxious -- that's kind of the kernel I started building the world out from, so it's good it's impactful.

The "health" is 'supposed to be' 'numbness' -- i.e. you're not getting hit by a car, you're getting shocked out of your stupor when you're honked at in the street. I wasn't sure how to or if I should tell the player this, so I ended up going with not saying anything and letting it come out via experience. I wish I'd done things differently, and if I had the time to add sound I think that would have helped.

I think I fixed the two bugs you mentioned (plus a couple free extras) in the new beta, so also thanks for the reports! The lobby definitely was not you, it was z-fighting I noticed before release and then forgot to fix.

binary-systems 2021-10-05 16:11

@samuel-hollywood-summers That's definitely my number one disappointment with this jam, not having the time to add sound. I had some really neat brainstorms for how to do it that I just ended up scoping myself out of. It definitely makes the game feel more empty than eerie to me. Thank you so much for playing, and thanks for your kind words on the scope.

binary-systems 2021-10-05 16:12

@mithoskuu Thank you for the report, that was the exact bug and I got it fixed in B2.

binary-systems 2021-10-05 16:17

@cubanfrog I'm so happy the game-play loop matched the theme for you! Not to extract a bug report, but did the store not sell you any two days in a row? There shouldn't be anything that causes them to permanently stop, you might just get unlucky a couple days. There's another way to skip time that involves the doctor, but seeing as you got through September you probably didn't visit them (since if you had in the original build, you would have gotten stuck in the office).

tory 2021-10-05 17:13

A very peculiar experience, it is difficult to understand what the game wants from you, the open world is very boring, but this makes it realistic. It is not entirely clear through what the theme of jam is revealed.

mechazawa 2021-10-06 18:01

wake me up when september ends

tykenn 2021-10-07 23:02

npc.png

I caught this creep looking through my window, lol

ks-zealot 2021-10-10 20:52

Didnt understand the game, but i'll check the book

const-arch 2021-10-12 05:08

It was an interesting game to play, and I think it probably does capture some of the book in the end. It's not a particularly fun game, but then that doesn't seem to be the point.

There are things I could bring up in terms of bugs, etc, but I think the main feedback I have on what the game is actually trying to do is that it's too easy for the player to disconnect what they need to do to move on from what is actually happening. I found myself trying to figure out how the game's systems for cigarettes worked, trying to figure out if it was necessary to hit the atm and store every day, etc. When I'm thinking this way, I'm thinking about the systems as entirely abstracted things, which doesn't really click with the experience the character is going through.

You could pose it as representing the players numbness in some way, but I don't think that disconnect really feels similar since the player has such a specific goal at any given moment. I think the key thing is to establish more of why the player feels they need these things rather than just giving the player a set of goals that must be accomplished to sleep. As is, I have a much more concrete goal and focus than the character.

I'm not really sure how you would go about improving that aspect, but it was interesting to think about. Thanks for putting this experiment together.

gno-evenimente 2021-10-12 06:01

The atmosphere in this game is quite good, it would only be even more amazing with some great sound design and music. I didn't quite understand the health bar thing and the lose condition, but walking around in the city was a good experience. Amazing that you achieved that with the most basic of 3D models, I think the animation and lighting was fantastic. Really good entry, and I'll check out Otessa's book.

ardorugus 2021-10-17 15:14

That's very interesting, though, you could just prototype a tiny version of it ("kill your darlings"), add some sounds and make it more of a story. There's narrative, and cars won't hit you. But still, there's a potential here, I hope. Keep up.

basset-romain 2021-10-20 08:14

The scope is a little bit too big I would have preferred a little scene more polished

rixar 2021-10-20 09:59

The theme here was intriguing and, I guess, intentionally unsettling enough that it provoked a discussion between my wife and I, and prompted her to look up the book that it's based on. I feel the art style, lighting and conversations fit the tone really well. Even the floating man in the street seemed...not out of place. I managed to rest for a month, and I admit wasn't hugely compelled to keep going, for now, though based on what might happen from the novel, I'm further intrigued. Maybe if there was just a touch more variety, or some way to further mark progress (the calendar is great, though). In the end, as an artistic experience, I felt it worked: I was a person endlessly going back and forth to the convenience store, desperate for a ciggie, waiting for the phone to ring. I admire folks taking a serious subject and turning it into this experience.