nahiavi 2023-10-03 19:50
The idea, the story, the art style! I love it! It's sooooo sweet! Oh, the ending so beautiful.... Really, really, really well done!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD54 → The Long Night of Augustus Brandicourt
By trezark, norah, nath.preha and Arasander
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 196 | 3.95 | 39 | |
| Fun | 718 | 3.24 | 39 | |
| Innovation | 420 | 3.52 | 39 | |
| Theme | 418 | 3.85 | 39 | |
| Graphics | 32 | 4.59 | 38 | |
| Audio | 183 | 3.82 | 37 | |
| Humor | 442 | 3.16 | 33 | |
| Mood | 20 | 4.41 | 39 |
The idea, the story, the art style! I love it! It's sooooo sweet! Oh, the ending so beautiful.... Really, really, really well done!
This game really looks amazing! And I really like you bound the theme to the narrative and the game-play trough the soul being bound to the body. A really nice a well written narrative with a lot of feeling in it. If there is anything missing I would say that if you some audio ambience to the house and interaction it could really bring another level to the already great mood of this game.
Great implementation! I really liked the mixture of 3D and 2D graphics. It came out expressive and stylish. I played through the game twice. Character control is also very pleasant. Special thanks for the atmosphere.
The downside is that the text is not very readable even on a large monitor screen. But these are just minor things.
Wow! Very impressive art style and implementation. You completely integrated the theme in the gameplay, and it's so satisfying.
Just a remark : I did not feel I was resolving a mistery, but I was told a (classic) story. I just wandered in circle waiting to see if an object highlighted.
Please expand this! It's fantastic, the art design is really clever and the story is intriguing. I want more!
Beautiful graphics and a story. Plays pretty smoothly too, though I did have some odd issues with rooms not being illuminated at first in the HTML version.
Fittingly for a ghost, I wasn't quite sure what to do. I found !> both sides of the old photograph, and the diaries/notes of the kids, even the stack of Edmund's paintings,
but what then?
For a minor improvement suggestion, I think movement should be blocked while you are interacting with something. A few times I wandered off in the background, and couldn't progress until I found my way back to interact again - which is tricky to do with the view blocked!
well, this is an LD Jam game begging to become more. Lovely and touching. I Can't wait to see what you do next.
The storywriting is very well done, and the mood you have set is incredible. I love the somber reflections on this greedy man's past, knowing it's too late.
I recorded myself playing to provide extra feedback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVdEEHQYhpA
Absolutely gorgeous art and great story too! The simple gameplay also worked well with the narrative driven experience. If something, maybe it would have been nice to get some kind of a hint where to go next and not just circle the place until I found the next interactable spot.
Well done! You could very well expand this to a great adventure game!
Lovely game with great graphics, music and a very emotional story! I love the sprites and textures you made! Also, the idea of binding the soul to the body is very nice!
I feel the game could be improved in many places! Some sound effects for interacting and animations could go a long way. I also notices some jitter when walking against the invisible wall. This could be prevented by clamping the position based on the radius which increases when interacting with more items, or by simply using interpolated rigidbody's.
Anyway, great entry! Good work!
Stunning as always <3
It looked really good. I thought the ending was going to be him finding a way to reach back into the world of the living to change his will, but the son still won't be able to go to Paris because he'll be destitute :( I think the approach to the narrative was good, it was fun seeing things just out of reach, and getting to anticipate what we would learn about them.
I am speechless. If I wrote somewhere about the best game of all time, forget it. This one really is. Visuals, story, storytelling style, theme, vibe. Wonderful. ( ༎ຶ ⌑ ༎ຶ )
I played it right to the end. I really got into the game and it was a great experience ! Very good game !
The art style is absolutely fantastic. For the puzzle-solving aspect, it might be even more enjoyable if it had a bit more challenge to it.
The game was absolutely amazing, the story, the art direction it was all great. Initially I struggled a bit to figure out what I was supposed to do but then again I should have read the initial book better :P.
The mood and theme of the game all worked out perfectly in the end. Had some graphical glitches when playing the web version and also ran into the mentioned bug with moving while interacting.
Ending was pretty touching, only thing I might suggest as an improvement to guide exploration is to prevent the player from moving through walls(just let them move through doors) so you can have more guided paths for exploration.
Good story. I got a bit stuck looking for new items to interact with near the end and ended up watching 100th-coin's playthrough because I wanted to see the end.
What a cool fit to the theme, a wonderfully styled game, and such a neat and touching story, well done!
Beautiful. Just beautiful... incredible atmosphere. But I got stuck.
Oh I think this is the best I have played so far. I had to play the web version, so i had those glitches which are most likely caused by the lighting, but that doesnt matter. The game looks awesome. The idea is great. It is very well implemented. The story is great (and sad) and I love it. Small fix required is stopping movement while dialogue boxes are opened. Anyway, 5/5, I want to see more of this.
tbh I didn't initially think I'd love this because I'm not the biggest fan of visual novel type games. but after playing it I can easily say my biggest problem is that it's too short!
I found the premise of walking around the house as a spirit discovering who I am, and what I meant to the people around me so captivating. I probably spend a bit too long finding the notes under the bed (I was also able to find the picture in the clock before I found the notes) so I probably spent a bit longer on this than most :smile:
Thanks to everyone who gave feedback and support! It means a lot to us :blush:
We went and made a __post-jam final version (Augustus_v3)__ to download, with little improvements to make the game smoother to play: - player movement is locked during interactions - UI should be able to adapt to most screen sizes - the restricted zone increases AFTER the item interaction, in order to make the goal of the game somewhat clearer - game progression has been tweaked a bit, especially towards the end - audio feedback when interacting with an item
@axys thank you for the tip! I tried adding an interpolated rigidbody on the player character, and that did fix the jitter against the invisible wall! but then I tested it in a HTML build and the player movement became super sluggish and jittered all the time, so I quickly scrapped that attempt... And I have to admit, with my current C# skills, making clamp functions work with the player positions in script could take me a very long time so, sadly I had to scrap that too...:sweat_smile: Still, I'll keep these ideas for the future :muscle:
I like the short little story. But the fact that this is a truly narrative game wonder if the narrative aspects of it are up to par. I like the idea of the father getting to understand his love for his children, but it does lack a lot of depth. To make it more interesting, you could have added some puzzle elements. Maybe some areas you could not enter without a key, or solving some kind of puzzle with the clues from the different diaries you look through. Could also have different choices so that you have the feeling that you have control over the plot. Just some things to consider, otherwise well done you all!
The story is really nice, it's like A Christmas Carol but with a twist. I think the game contains a lot of philosophical potential. I really respect the amount of 3D-models and visual level design in this game. The game is really funny too, good job
Was looking forward to your new game after Becasse against the depths. And I love it!
The art is gorgeous! The models in the game itself look good too. Very atmospheric music.
Pressing E to interact felt pretty un-intuitive, would be nice to tell the controls in-game as well. I kinda pressed play right away and just found E by pressing on all the buttons, only then went back to this page to confirm the controls ^^' Yeah, the items are highlighted with "E", but at first, when you got a text box, you are at a loss.
I like how you executed the idea of "limited space", it feels like a very original take to me, while still staying true to the theme. And it is shown in the gameplay AND makes sense for the story, which is double great. Pretty funny how I got out of bounds though: bounds.jpg
One of the portraits in the corridor showing a character from your previous game Becasse against the depths was a nice easter egg ^^
Overall: it was a beautiful short story, and I liked the way you gave the information, that felt natural and gave us pretty much all the info we needed. the ending is quite sweet as well, I really liked the kinda-animated CG there :) And a cute Ending screen as well, very satisfying. I wonder how the children are going to live now, as I don't think we made any changes to the will (maybe it's not even possible as we are a ghost) (and I tried interacting with the will again before I interacted with Edmund) but I guess the main thing is that we regret our actions and that we did give our son a blessing <3
+ There was less wandering around than in Becasse, and I liked the controls. The mechanic is also great, and I enjoyed slowly uncovering the rooms. The items are highlighted from far enough distance. I DID wander around a bit looking for new spaces BUT I am *very* directionally challenged and still it didn't take too long.
Thank you for the game, it was a great experience!! ^^
@kanity Thank you for your feedback ! That's so nice of you, we're so glad you liked this game and Becasse as well :smile: We were surprised you remembered Becasse, but you also saw the portrait in the corridor ! Impressive haha :smile:
Yes, we thought maybe Augustus could change his will but we didn't do it in the end.
You're right for the "E" control, left click would have been a lot better.
Anyway, Thank you again !! :heart:
@100th-coin Thank you so much for your let's play ! It was really fun to watch, your commentaries were always on point :ok_hand:
Your voice was perfect when you read Augustus thoughts :ghost:
I like the 2D art would have liked to see more of it. Overall Great Job!
Nice little narrative experience, clever take on the theme!