Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → Pale Moon Shone
By ditam
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 574 | 3.64 | 36 | |
| Fun | 1001 | 3.19 | 36 | |
| Innovation | 434 | 3.60 | 36 | |
| Theme | 597 | 3.69 | 36 | |
| Graphics | 570 | 3.79 | 36 | |
| Humor | 350 | 3.58 | 31 | |
| Mood | 43 | 4.32 | 36 |
Welcome, everyone! With a day 0 patch I have unlocked a proper victory path (as well as fixed a botched commit that pushed my placeholder art during submission hour...), so my game is now properly playable and winnable.
I'm looking forward to your comments!
I enjoyed the atmosphere of this game - the art style and music selection worked well together, and I found the dialogue engaging. Additionally, I thought the inclusion of the quotes contributed nicely to the experience. One piece of feedback I have is maybe giving clearer indications as to where the dialogue will branch on repeat runs, as I found that wasn't always obvious. However, I played through to the ending, and enjoyed this take on the theme.
I love the aesthetic here, and although I can see you opted out of music you've selected great tracks.
The introduction is really smooth, and everything about the dialogue UI is pretty much perfect. Changing the dialogue each time around is a nice touch, too.
Unfortunately, I'm apparently *really* bad at shooting bottles, and I just can't seem to hit them. I tried a few times, but eventually had to give up. The loading screen/quotation screen after missing a bottle feels really long, and I would have appreciated a quicker way to try again... As good as the dialogue is, it's quite a long sequence to sit through every time.
I wish the dialogue was mapped to the buttons that are listed next to each option. And I wish I was better at the shooting. But then so does Colton. Amazing job!
Awesome game! I really like the music and graphics, they really tie together the whole the whole story-telling astetic. 10/10 please make more games!
@thesedatedprince Thanks! I see where you're coming from, I was a bit worried that the "loop time" is a bit too long, and that might make finding the victory path annoying, but I'm really glad that the very first commenter managed to beat the game. I wouldn't add hints like that to the game itself, but I might add some spoiler tags to one of these comments.
@pennycook Thanks! I was focusing on creating a strong atmosphere this time around, and audio played a huge role in that, so it's great to see it appreciated. You can find the attributions for music as well as all the sound effects in the repo, [here](https://github.com/ditam/ld49/blob/master/assets/attributions.txt). As for the bottles, of course they are hard to hit when you've been drinking! Minor spoilers: !> Hitting the bottles is not the goal of the game ;)
This game is great despite its simplicity, I liked the concept. I didn't expect to find a narrative game like this
Amazing atmosphere, and very nice effects (the glass pushed, the pouring of the drink, the shoes...). I did a lousy job on aiming, though - too much drinking, I guess.
I'd love to see some hints at some points (if aiming was possible or not, what was the main goal, and so on). But maybe this was part of the experience? Anyway, very well-done, with beautiful, polished details.
Very neat indeed, I liked the story and dialogue. Music selection was very fitting too, and the accompanying audio selections were on point.
I was a bit confused the first time as to what the game was doing since the dialogue does change after each attempt, but not drastically (so I wondered if it was a whole new game each time you shot a bottle). Was glad to eventually find the continuity and path to victory though.
Overall, good work, I do like a good short story-based entry like this and this was well crafted.
@ditam I shall play it again!
Yay, I beat it! I was worried I was doing something wrong with it looping, but the dialogue was changing enough to tell me to keep going and then eventually you should get what to do. Good looking art, good music to set the mood and keep the story feeling alive. Nice narrative game!
@maxathon Of course, I kinda forgot, I'll add the key mappings in the next bugfix batch.
@mirianbr You're asking the right questions ;) Aiming is possible - whether you hear glass breaking should tell you if you were successful in it or not. But as for the main goal, !> it is not about shooting the bottles ;)
@destroyertech I'm glad you powered through. I agree that the continuity is not very obvious. There are some marginal clues, such as the aiming getting more (wait for it) unstable, but it might be hard to tell. I'll work on polishing this aspect if I ever make post-jam updates.
Thank you @devparty @dawcrash!
Haha, yes I wondered whether I'd noticed the aiming getting a bit more unstable, that was definitely smart.
It feels very polished and has a great atmosphere. I really like the idea of a more story driven game, altough I think the ending was a little unsatisfying.
Wow, that's atmospheric work. Narrative is absolutely awesome. Hitting the bottles seems too unstable though. At 3rd shooting scene i tried like 15 times to hit those bottles, and sometimes it definetly feels like i did (i think there is a special message screen for a case when u succesfully hitted the bottle?). But i always ended up skipping through the same dialogue scene. I gave up on that. But nevertheless - great job creating this game, it was a pleasure to play :)
That was great! The musics, the sound, the subtle changes in dialog... At first I was worried about the shooting mechanic beeing too repetitive, but at some point the story clicked with me and I understood what Boone had to do... !> or quit doing.
You did an amazing job with this submission. Narrative wise, your game is by far the best I've played.
I'm back, and this time I finished it. :smile:
It's a good message, and it works. I'm glad I came back for another go. But even knowing something was going to happen (or perhaps _because_ I knew something was going to happen) it felt like it took me a long time to get there. I still think the loops should be a little quicker... It might even help to strengthen the narrative, because you could fit a lot more loops into the same amount of play time.
The other thing I'd consider changing (if you revisit for post-jam polish) is the scene you get after shooting a bottle. It _really_ looks like a game over screen to me, and I think that's working against you here. Something that suggested the passage of time instead -- even as simple as a fade to black, then fade to the bar scene -- might help to clue the player in more.
Still, a really great entry. I'm nit-picking because you did such a great job with everything else. :wink:
Very atmospheric entry! Love the intro, music & quotes. Feels more like a movie opener. The loop for progressing through seems a bit on the long side, but I might just be crap at hitting things ;)
Thanks everyone! I've pushed a minor bugfix which should improve your experience with shooting, and slightly sped up the loop times based on your feedback.
Thanks for the praise @kamuniaft. The UX is not super clear there - you are meant to go back to the "same" dialog after the shooting scene, but you are not restarting or stuck, just entering the same room. If you hear a glass breaking, you hit the bottle - and one of the quotes is indeed reserved for this case. As for giving up: !> The goal of the game is not shooting well ;)
Thanks @eptwalabha ! It means a lot :)
Welcome back @pennycook ! Thanks for the detailed feedback, I'm definitely concerned about the feel of continuity (or the lack of it) after the shooting scene, if there's ever a post-jam version, this issue is on top of my list.
Thank you too @balduin. I also feel like there's a better ending (and path to it) somewhere within this concept and story, but that's all I could squeeze into this jam :)
Thanks @joror - check out the spoiler tags (black bars) I left in some of these comments.
This was really nicely polish, and definitely the best atmosphere I've seen so far! The only thing I'd like to see was some clearer instruction on how to win, as my games instinct told me had I to hit the bottles and I would have given up it is wasn't for the fact that I read the comments. overall a solid entry!
As per quite a few other comments, I initially thought that after the first shooting scene I hit a game over, but then realized it was just a quote. Otherwise, pretty solid entry, although it was more "visual novel-y" than most of the games I tend to play. Although it was a pretty enjoyable experience, nonetheless.
This is a neat entry, nice to get a break from platformers. The poem snippets add a level of class, and the music selections were great fits. Trying to think what could be improved... sometimes I wasn't sure who was talking (me, the person at the door, or the bartender), so maybe that could be made a little clearer somehow (different colour or font for the text?). I kind of just kept looping, wandering, until I found my way to the end, but the end was satisfying. Maybe you could add a final image to the ending, so it's a little more rewarding or enlightening to the story.
Good ambiance in this one. I got pretty drunk, so I felt like a progressed a good bit! The pacing was nice and slow, which I think achieved what the makers set out to do. The music was fitting too. Well done!
Thanks @simex! This subversion of expectation was one of my main design goals during development, pretending to be a target shooting game initially. The repetition and the futility of the shooting scene was supposed to drive the player to explore the options at the bar. I don't like holding the players' hands too much, but it's a tricky thing to balance, it clearly seems like some people were turned away before finding their way to the ending. Thanks for sticking around! I'll try to polish this aspect if there's ever a post-jam version.
@chris-hay The speakers always have dedicated positions on the screen (top left for the bartender, top right for the "person at the door", bottom for Colton), plus there's also a touch of dedicated colour underneath the lines, but it might be too subtle to see. I'll try to think of a more rewarding ending screen. I'm glad you found the ending satisfying regardless, thanks for your praise!
Thank you too @rubixnoob13 and @kymakesgames!
Very interesting entry! So much drinking, so many bottles shot at. I wasn't sure what I was doing it all for, much like actually drinking, so it feels accurate.
I liked that it was different from what I've seen in other entries.