House is not always a home

zantze 2021-10-04 18:46

I ended up reading the whole thing, since it was quite interesting where it was gonna go! The story fit the theme really well and the plot was pretty good! The art and the music also was working really well with the story and the theme. I first got a bad ending and had to skip through the whole story again to continue uwu

I can't give much tips on how to write stories, but I think you should try to use a different font for renpy, and maybe make the UI a bit more fitting for the game! Also I think the capitalization of first letter and names and I's should be consistent all across the story.

Also congratulations on your first LDJAM entry! Good luck with the ratings!

seaslugstudios 2021-10-04 19:35

@zantze thank you so much for the feedback, this is only the second game ive ever made so im still learning the ropes when it comes to renpy, im glad you liked the game though!

i actually kicked myself in the but for not knowing how to change the UI in renpy yet, i didnt even know you could change the fonts either...this was a massive learning experience for me and i appreciate any and all feedback that i can get on this game to help me in the future!

thank you again, not just for the feedback but for playing my game in general :)

devundead 2021-10-04 19:56

I like the story, but it is a pretty sad one. I never played a text based game, but I see how these games are very nice for calm down. The music is also very nice for this sort of game, as it is well in focus. There is one thing, which I dislike: The different art styles used. If it had a meaning, unfortunally I didn't get it and was a little bit confused about it.

zantze 2021-10-04 19:56

@seaslugstudios heyy, keep at it! VNs is not an easy genre for a short jam like this, and you did great! You could try to find VNs with similiar time constraints and see how they did things for inspiration!

ugly-robot 2021-10-04 20:58

Wow, what a powerful entry. Glad I was able to get the good ending! What a ride. Excellent job, love the art, and especially the music! I left one section running while I did chores just to hear the song play. Really well done!

freeworld 2021-10-05 06:56

Very heavy stuff..

Fits the theme well and is very unique. The atmosphere together with the mostly black and white art style and the music all go very well with the brooding, helpless overall mood. I'm also quite impressed with how much story, backgrounds and characters you were able to put together in this short amount of time.

Great job!

natalia-dushkina 2021-10-05 19:40

Great job for a compo, you certainly know how to prioritise features. The game certainly has an atmosphere. I played 2 times and reached bad end 1 and bad end 3.

dnabro 2021-10-07 03:02

The kind of entry that made me wish there was a category for story. There are some points that were a bit much like the boyfriend but I enjoyed it overall, def a different feeling from a everything else that I've seen submitted.

nyxkn 2021-10-07 19:57

Really cool! The art was really fitting. Ended up playing the whole thing, though I got the bad ending :( Hard to judge the whole game since I've only seen one story path, but if there's one criticism is that at times I thought the story moved a bit slowly and at some point there didn't seem to be a clear direction to the plot. Good job though, doesn't seem to be easy to come up with IF during a jam!

tattomoosa 2021-10-07 22:49

You established the mood really well. Appreciate the trigger warning too -- not necessary for me but a must in a game like this.

I think a couple passes of editing would help a lot. Some of the scenes could be cut in half if not more, and still get the feeling/story across. I think there is a case to be made for long scenes with uncomfortable dialogue, but if every scene is long that doesn't feel intentional. I think the lowercase was a stylistic choice, and I did get that, but because the writing wasn't always technically solid it didn't always come off that way. Of course it's also a huge task to edit a game of this size within the time frame.

Even with all the detail, when the time for a choice came I didn't feel like I had any hints of what was a good idea in the situation -- I thought that was a good way to sell the abusive home at first, when you actually don't know what will set somebody off, but then the other choices also seemed like they didn't have much in the way of signposting what they entailed. There's the one scene that's like "I must choose my words carefully" and then it's not even a dialogue choice, that really irked me.

The music was good, and some of the sounds fit, but some of them felt just a little out of place.

Also, glad you were able to get out of the situation that was the inspiration for the game. Hope things are well.

seaslugstudios 2021-10-09 22:27

@tattomoosa thank you alot for that large amount of feedback, I will say there are a couple of things that even I personally didn't like about some of the dialogue pieces in the game...there are actually quite a few more situations and choices I meant to put into the game and flesh out more, but I almost ran out of time trying to get this done...I want to try and remake this game once Ludum Dare is officially over with better sounds and an actual planned and fully written and edited script

I meant for the choices to feel a bit difficult, as based on somewhat personal experience some choices wouldn't have mattered but I agree with you that I should have given more clues on certain situations.

This is the kinda feedback I was needing though because I knew there were things I rushed and ended up lacking in the final product that I wish I had done differently, so thank you again for taking the time to dissect my game like this!

fupi 2021-10-10 18:50

It's a nice idea, while very unpolished. I'm not the biggest fan of visual novels, especially if they go on for too long, but I kept going this time to see where the story would go. Got a bad end unfortunately and accidentally skipped over a different ending I was trying to go for so I couldn't see it. :(

I think the presentation here could be loads better. I understand that writing all that dialogue takes a long time, and you did manage to make a complete and long story, but presentation is also very important in games like these.

I felt like the graphics could have been better planned out: the character stills have cutout white outlines, really noticeable in dark backgrounds, some backgrounds don't cover the whole screen, and their art style could be better. The characters are well drawn, but the backgrounds are all scribbly. I get this was probably a stylistic choice, considering how the protagonist views the world, but that could also have been conveyed with a less messy style.

The music is actually really good, I assume you made it yourself so props! Only, one of the songs is really loud and clipped. It was probably a stylistic choice but, again, there's more ways to convey a feeling of dread than just making it messy, especially if it involves making a perfectly good song unpleasant to listen too.

Finally, I felt like the dialogue was a bit hastily written. It makes sense to do that, since there's not much time and a lot to write, but I think even running the script through a spellcheck would make a big difference. If you're not a native English speaker (I'm just assuming here, sorry if I'm wrong), writing a story is definitely a good way to practice. The story itself is interesting and made me want to keep going, although some scenes felt too long.

Ultimately I think these stylistic problems could have been solved by better planning. You don't need to be amazing at everything to make a game that feels good, you just need to play to your strengths. And doing more game jams is how you learn to do all that! So yeah, I hope to see you next jam! Sorry for writing so much. :I

gdesecrate 2021-10-10 19:02

Thanks, great novel! Got ending 3 and Good one after.

piper-thompson 2021-10-10 19:25

WOW such a captivating and moving experience! I played through the whole story in one session right away and was deeply touched by it! Thank you for making this! I hope you didn't have to endure anything like this in RL - still overwhelmed! Winner of the jam in my heart, that's for shure! @seaslugstudios

kirby 2021-10-14 13:43

such a great game , nice work! <3

avareii 2021-10-14 16:01

Okay, wow. A deep, coherent, and well-made visual novel as a compo game. Well done!

Of course, the art is a bit sketchy, but that just adds to the vibe, and there's some grammar issues but that's normal for a novella written in 48 hours. But the mood, wow. I got drawn in in the first minute or two. I liked the fitting music and the visual metaphors in the character designs.

Got bad endings: 'locked in' and 'isolation'. Saved to play more later.

ardorugus 2021-10-17 15:24

Nice ambient music with cool overdrive, but it gets harder to listen further, and the sfx just don't fit. Despite that, finally a cool narrative weeping sim I craved for! Thank you. Digged the sketch art. And the tunes change, hey! You're over your head. Cool entry. (too much text with lack of proper direction due the lack of time, still cool)

seaslugstudios 2021-10-22 23:57

@fupi @kirby @nyxkn @zantze @dnabro @avareii @ardorugus @freeworld @devundead @tattomoosa @gdesecrate @ugly-robot @natalia-dushkina @piper-thompson

i want to first off, thank every single one of you for leaving feedback on my game...it was extremely appreciated, i will be taking all of your feedback into account when i go on to make a full fledged game....i also wanna thank you all for even taking the time to play my game...this is only the second game ive ever put together (the first was also a game jam game) and I have been doubting myself on whether or not i should even continue with game dev stuff at all...but after seeing yall's feedback and my results i think i finally have the confidence to actually pursue this...i know this game had alot of flaws...i wasnt able to proofread any of the stuff before posting...the music and sound effects were rushed and the story wasnt even able to have all the endings i planned for it...but i managed to make a finished product and the fact that you all took the time out to actually play it? i cant thank you all enough

this was my first ever Ludum Dare...and with this now i hope to do plenty more and hopefully i can show you all the progress ive made thanks to your feedback! you all are the real MVPs for this game!

fupi 2021-10-23 00:46

@seaslugstudios Np! I'm happy to see that your immense effort and care got you such a great placement in Theme and Mood!