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A Message for the Stone King
A Message for the Stone King
By selkieharbour
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 207 | 3.96 | 32 | |
| Fun | 503 | 3.53 | 32 | |
| Innovation | 241 | 3.76 | 32 | |
| Theme | 522 | 3.96 | 32 | |
| Graphics | 145 | 4.36 | 32 | |
| Humor | 820 | 2.70 | 26 | |
| Mood | 107 | 4.16 | 32 | |
Comments
angiemon
2023-05-02 09:31
What a great entry, especially for 2 people! Everything looked very polished and clean. The artstyle is pleasant, sounds are minimalistic and very fitting! It worked for me with no problems btw :) (didn't have to download the additional unreal thing)
The story was intriguing and the two scenes together with everything else made the world feel very epic :)
I thought the minigame was a cool idea, but it might be that I didn't get it, haha. other than clicking the colourful parts in the best way to remove more tiles? But that is very nit-picky since this is a gamejam :D (we for example weren't able to finish like 20% of what we wanted, haha)
if you wanna work on this it would be cool if there were different endings, safe files and maybe work on the digging mini game some more, maybe that how long you take also effects the outcome? I really liked the kind of continous hinting at clues and searching for the right way to go, so it would be cool if you as a player had tto (and could!) figure out the correct way to reach certain endings (maybe with like a list hinting of what the ending does?)
Again, great job, congrats, hope you guys are proud of yourselfes :)
citsua
2023-05-02 12:49
Very innovative concept, and lovely graphics. I liked the concept of trying to find the right message, though the answers sometimes seemed unfitting (I said "my kind king" and he answered "friend? no one has called me this for a while" or something like that). Great work!
Very cool idea, good job! I liked that one of the winning option I used was there from the start.
Now I wonder if I would have been able to make the king sign a treaty but oh well, off to war!
thae
2023-05-02 13:16
Very engaging for its simple setup. I was confused by the little puzzle to dig your way out of prison. Kind of funny how the king does not seem to give a thing about you crawling out of there every single time. Graphically the game looks slick, the music is very atmospheric and adds to the experience.
This ROCKS (haha geddit)!! How does this not have more ratings? The art looks wonderful and everything is polished! Having conversation be the main mechanic of the game is also really neat - though it is very linear and kind of hard to be wrong. Amazing job though!!
Awesome game! Very impressive, congratz :)
I'm a big fan of the art and animation work, and the music choice was solid too. I liked the story and its presentation. Unrelated to the gameplay, but the depth of the Options menu astounded me -- it even has colourblind settings! Is that something that comes with the Unreal engine, or did you find a way to implement that yourselves? Overall really well done!
antvelm
2023-05-03 08:15
Oh wow! I like how you put some many details into the King to make him believable. Animations and visuals, also minimalistic UI. I like it! Trying to convey not believer is a hard task indeed.
I liked it a lot! The king was very believable. Good graphics!
I don't think the digging puzzle added much to the game though. No idea what the different colors meant. Could probably be removed and just been a button that brings you back to the king.
Good job with the game! I Enjoyed it!
Oh, what a story! I enjoyed playing your game, thank you very much!
amunonra
2023-05-03 23:54
Wow, this is one of the most polished entries I have seen. The animation of the king looks great and I also liked the soundtrack. Figuring out the correct answers was a little bit unsatisfying, more a try and error than actual deduction if you try to derive the correct answers only on the kings reaction. The addition to this is by receiving the hints from the other prisoners automaticaly there's actualy no real point in figuring out the answers yourself before. Could be a personal thing though
Thank you very much for all your feedback! It's true the digging minigame is a bit confusing but we wanted to put something to transition between the scenes and we didn't have much time left.
@dingledorf regarding the color blind options, unreal has a function you can call that changes the colorblind options so it's very easy to [implement](https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/API/Runtime/UMG/Blueprint/UWidgetBlueprintLibrary/SetColorVisionDeficiencyType/)
You got nice graphics which makes me come! You got simple and fun puzzles which makes me comment! Welcome to play my game as well~
cabritta
2023-05-05 23:02
What a nice game. Really lovely low poly style, nice animations, and good narrative! I love the ideia of delivering a message. Great jam entry, would be awesome to continue working on it and adding more depth, different endings, etc.
Hey guys!
I do like the artistic style, you know that I'm a big fan of it, right? :smile:
I was actually expecting that king will turn out to stone one cycle after the next, but anyway it was pretty neat experience. The only part which didn't fit is digging, tbh. It's unclear why it's needed and how it's working, like a placeholder for a normal mechanic or something.
I would rather replace it with some point-and-clicking to find evidence in a prison or some more complicated dialogue system with other prisoners.
But that's a minor and I think you have the same feeling, just was running out of time. Overall I love it, lovely story, lovely idea (and pretty cool theme interpretation), cool art & animations and of course good music. Here is my :star2::star2::star2::star2::star2:
yuriscat
2023-05-07 04:12
Interesting game. The music is also good, and the character illustrations are great. The mini-games are also impressive. I hope you guys get a good score. Well done!
riley9
2023-05-07 13:48
i love this. i could feel the urgency everytime i spoke to the king and the imprisoned ones! i actually liked the minigame too and how it made me feel directly with every click that time is running out. i also loved how the focus of the game changed halfway through: first i was focused on choosing the right dialogue options but then i was paying closer attention to learn more about the king from the others he imprisoned next to me - it's a slight but effective change of feeling!
leorid
2023-05-07 15:27
For me it bugged out and the king kept replying to the same message, no matter what choices I picked. I then restarted the whole game and it happend again.
I like the concept, the visuals (of the two scenes), the dialogues and the overall setting, but unfortunately I didn't see the end.
If someone has I video of the whole playthrough, please @ me. I really want to see the end. xD
Man, I'm tired of digging! This could be faster, story parts are interesting enough to wish them for. Great entry and the idea within seemingly tiny encounter. Thanks for this quest!
@leorid oh no, sorry it bugged out! Nobody has reported the same and I've looked at the code and everything seems fine, note that if you repeat the same message (or messages of the same category) the king will answer the same. Maybe it was that? Anyways, itchio recorded a gameplay you can find here ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B74ukTSLcCk
Interesting take on the theme, game looks fantastic too. Played it on my stream if you're interested: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1818416980
This is really well done! I actually played twice in the hopes that I could get a different ending and, while I didn't, I did appreciate the slight differences. Without spoiling anything, I also really liked the change in the minigame toward the end, that felt really impactful! I also, in hindsight, love that I couldn't get (or at least couldn't figure out) a second ending as trying to make a king do something they don't wanna do is essentially impossible (and the point anyway tbh lol). Well done!
Oh and I forgot to mention that I LOVE how well that art style works, and the animations on the king. And the concept of learning how to speak with him in a way that'll actually matter is so epic!
konfekt
2023-05-14 20:37
Super solid dialogue! The king is really believable throughout in his attitude. At the very end when he sees reason I was expecting him to grapple slightly longer with his emotions, but other than that every reaction felt realistic. I also loved crafting my delivery and getting new tips from the prisoners as time went on.
aile
2023-05-15 08:20
As already pointed out, the dialogue was really nice! I loved talking to the prisoners, putting together the pieces of the story. The digging mini-game was a little confusing, although it wasn't exactly hard. I kept thinking maybe I missed something? The King's animations were really fitting, and the progress of learning how to talk to him, e.g. what choices to make, was very interesting. I spent a lot of time in that dungeon lol. Good job and such an interesting idea!
Very cool! Great visuals, I loved the 3d movels that look almost 2d! I also liked the text appearing sound (I'm a sucker for the small things!). The story/dialogue was good and the music was great (and appropriate too)!