mauzart 2025-04-07 19:13
Looks fun, looking forward to playing it once it's ready !!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Murder for Dessert
By fupi and catusfelony
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 72 | 4.11 | 59 | |
| Fun | 154 | 3.82 | 59 | |
| Innovation | 226 | 3.62 | 59 | |
| Theme | 558 | 3.46 | 58 | |
| Graphics | 137 | 4.27 | 60 | |
| Audio | 36 | 4.20 | 60 | |
| Humor | 32 | 4.27 | 60 | |
| Mood | 52 | 4.26 | 58 |
Looks fun, looking forward to playing it once it's ready !!
@mauzart It is ready! All that's left is the description :sweat_smile:
It genuinely blew my mind how tight this was!!! Cant believe you pulled it off, the atmosphere, music, and characters are INCREDIBLE!!! Deserves so much more ratings!!!
@sayeg Thank you so so much!!! We're so exhausted but I'm glad it paid off for you <3
@fupi letgoooo well done! The game is really cool, I loved all of i and @sayeg already said it all, congrats !!
Awesome atmosphere and music as always, you guys nailed the black and white detective vibe. I don't think I've ever played a game before where you can go backward in dialogue boxes that's some innovation.
The bass goes hard I found myself singing the dialogue at the start with a deep voice lol.
Unfortunately I couldn't for the life of me beat the game, there is a lot of back and forth the best I could do was unlock 3 dialogues at a time. I guess my detective skills aren't as good as I thought :smiley:
Though if I was to give you feedback I would say that the game requires more commitment than the average jam game, I spend a good 20 minutes but I wasn't making as much progress as I hoped, but that may well be a skill issue. Congrats on finishing the game!
@0x-void-x0 Thanks for the feedback! I guess we've got just as much breadth as depth, hehe! Fupi went absolutely hard with all the art and music and I found myself playing the game over and over, I could beat the game in around 12 minutes -- but that is knowing the story, so I knew this would be quite a bit of time commitment, with not much way to fix it, unfortunately! I can only hope the atmosphere hooks players in enough to want to dedicate the time!
Thank you for playing ^-^
@0x-void-x0 Thanks for giving it a try void! I absolutely get that about the length, honestly I didn't realize the game got so long until Kett sent me their playthrough and it was 12 minutes long, it was completely by accident ;w; I don't think I'd like to spend that long on a jam game but I'm still super proud of how it turned out and I hope you'll try again someday when you've got more time!
Brilliant :) I never really play this type of game but it had me interested. I definitely want to come back and finish it - I managed to unlock about 4 of the dialogue options before getting a game over but it definitely felt I wasn't getting further due to my own incompetence :D Amazing story to pull together in 72 hours~
@plidomo Thank you for playing, I'm glad you liked it! I might have to add an infinite lives mode, the game is already too long as it is lol
I really liked the way you mixed photos and drawings for this! The vibes are really great. Congrats on making such a heavy narrative based game in such a short time!
@texugo Muito obrigado!! :D
Amazing game, i got a little stuck (about 15min) providing the right info to billy in the beginning, but the github helped me out, i'd really wish there was a hint button suggesting who has the information to progress the case, otherwise the game is perfect
@franco-kikkas I definitely didn't expect someone to go search for the answers in the source, but it makes sense, hehe x3
Thank you for playing!
That's something we didn't even think of! I was in fact thinking the game was turning out too *easy* but from feedback we've gotten, I figured that's not the case at all. Something to keep in mind when either of us makes a detective game again ^-^
@franco-kikkas Thanks for playing! I think I will add a hints section to the game page soon, it's not perfect but at least people won't have to look in the source to figure out what to do x)
This is ridiculously good. I didn't have enough time to get to the end, but as soon as I can I'll get back to it. This is the most complex game I've seen so far. Reminds me a lot of The Case of the Golden Idol, which is one of my favorite games ever. You guys did an amazing job. Art style is great, the writing is really good its so funny, I didn't encounter any kind of bug during my playthrough. I would easily pay for this game haha
@gquibao Muito obrigado!! I'm happy to hear you got hooked into the story, it's actually very flattering! I hope you can come back and finish it soon :grin:
Looks absolutely amazing! Graphics, sound, atmosphere – everything's a perfect 10/5!
Came back to finish the game. It's amazing, I loved it. Mais uma vez, parabéns pelo trabalho de vocês! :smile:
This is fantastic. No notes. Great job!
Great art, great dialogue system, impressive scale for a jam. Quite funny as well. This game hits in all areas, good work, congrats on a successful jam!
It's both stupid and brilliant, and funny and weird. This game causes emotion, which only means that the game cannot be bad! GJ
Managed to find the culprit!
Anyway, this was awesome! The setting here was super cool, and the mixed use of pictures & drawings worked out incredibly well. I really enjoyed the writing here & the story was hilarious - I could definitely understand the culprit's frustration upon discovering them :) The pin mechanic was very cool as well, while it worked similar to evidence in other games, it felt more satisfying since you had to actively gather it yourself instead of being handed things automatically by the game - really clever!
Similar to some other games in the genre though, sometimes you present something adjacent to - but not quite - what the game expected, which was a bit frustrating. For example, I presented the line that Bethany was friends with Phillips to Zamora instead of the line that she knew Zamora; or I presented the *reason* that Richard was crying to Billy instead of the *fact* that he was crying. While this wasn't a huge issue, it did make me a bit overly cautious to present stuff due to the limited lives, and I actually got stuck after presenting the wrong Richard line to Billy since I thought that wasn't the intended direction. Of course, this is very understandable in a jam game, just something to keep in mind for the future :)
Lastly, while this one's purely one me for being too used to Ace Attorney, but I only realized in my second playthrough (after losing once) that you could just present pins regardless of the line they were saying. Which is great and prevented the additional room-for-error of presenting the right thing for the wrong line, but feel like it could be mentioned somewhere.
Overall though, I really, really loved this! It's so cool that you managed to make a complete murder mystery in just three days! Incredible entry!
finely made graphics and music!
@frogman Thank you so much for your detailed review!! I'm glad you still managed to get to the end!
I tried to write around the problem of needing very specific pins by making the last few sentences as clear as possible on what the characters needed. For example, in the Zamora scene, she ends with "I wonder if we've met", which means you must go find an example of Bethany saying that they have met! The Billy scene is indeed more vague, and players seem to be getting stuck on him more often. I made Brennan think "If I show him I know what he's talking about, maybe he'll tell me more", which I intended to communicate that you needed to find a character confirming what happened in the story Billy was telling. Billy was saying someone cried, so you needed to confirm that someone actually did cry, and that it was Richard. But of course, it's not uncommon for there to be a disconnect between what the dev intended VS. what the players naturally interpret, it's hard to get right unless you have a lot of playtesters, which is why insight like this is so valuable to me!
This could be easily fixed by making each scene be unlockable by multiple lines, so that the player feels like they're actually moving forward with what they know instead of being locked out of continuing because of a technicality.
I didn't want to include lives originally but we felt like we needed to have *some* fail state, in my opinion the "infinite lives" mode is the definitive experience, because, while it is easier, having lives seems to force you to be overly cautious and not experiment as much.
And the thing about players thinking they have to present pins towards specific lines is like you said a matter of communication, since the mechanic is not explained you kinda have to fill in with what you already know from other similar games. I expected that to not be a problem since, if the player thought they had to relate pins to specific lines, and they played a correct pin, it would work anyway. But I didn't think about the other option where the player plays an incorrect pin and then is tempted to try the same pin again on different lines to see if it works lol, which will just eat away at your lives and make the game seem way more difficult than it actually is.
Returned to it~ What a wonderfully crafted game! It must’ve taken a lot of care to get everything to fit together so seamlessly—and those aesthetics? Chef’s kiss. I absolutely love Billy, haha, and the skate-old-turtle-lady is such a gem. My only gripe is that it’s tough to complete quickly, which is pretty common with jam games—but with a genre like this, you’re meant to take your time and savor it. Splendid work overall!
@svenerik Thank you so much!! I put a lot of care into making sure the story unraveled in a way that felt natural, here's a little map I made during development of all the paths you'd take :sweat_smile: Since visual novels are mechanically simpler than most other games, it's easy for them to get very long very quickly, but I totally didn't intend this insane length! Glad you stuck around though!
Captura de tela 2025-04-09 164425.png
@frogman Oh it is also funny you mention presenting pins to individual lines rather than just to the character, because that's how I had initially developed it! That was also *my* expectation for games in the genre, the game *is* difficult but it was going to be even more difficult if I had my way. After talking to Fupi near the end of the second day the intent was made clear and I quickly changed it to how it is in the final version. x3
@catusfelony I guess the main difference is that most games with mechanics similar to this focus them around refuting people's points with contradictions, while I wanted this game to be about piecing together 5 different overlapping narratives! For most of the pins, there is no one line it's supposed to refute, you're just bringing up something you've heard. So the way I decided to present it as if it were similar to a refutation mechanic is a UX issue
I did not finish but... nice art music fits, the characters feel different, nice work
I played for about fifteen minutes, and it was flawless.
It reminded me of the old 'Tex Murphy' graphical fiction stories. Even a little like some of the Infocom stuff.
You have the start of a nice game there. Keep up the good work
I played it all the way through - some of the clues are a bit tricky to spot and some were pretty obvious - certainly took a while to finish but I enjoyed it! Good music, art style, and writing. Well done!
Very cool game! In places, I made me think a lot and peep a little in the passage, but I liked it! Well done!
I really enjoyed the atmosphere, the art is cute and the music. It's a cool little mystery with a funny premise and some of the writing was pretty good too!
I liked the pin mechanic, it's an interesting way yo go about making a game like this, it encourages deducting thins on your own. There were a few moments where I kinda got suck but idk if it was just me not really being able to put some things together that easily but I eventually got to the end thanks to some of the tips
@tetracold Thanks a lot!! :D Do you remember what scenes you got stuck at? I still wanna know which ones seemed unclear to most people
@fupi
I'll try, keep in mind that I am not really familiar or experienced with this genre of game The main one where I got suck is the part where I was supposed to confront penny about the time she started her shift, I had a feeling that the time frames may be important in some way but I wasn't exactly sure how and it didn't really put 2 and 2 together. mostly because I didn't really think of what penny said as time frame related.
Maybe part of it was also that I was trying to look too deep into some lines, I kinda got caught up in the first part on finding holes in richard's story and also billy and and it wasn't really bringing me anywhere because I was supposed to progress with a different character first. that's something that kinda threw me off a few times, I was gather info that to me sounded like something i should check should immediately check because I thought it would help me advance but I was either not doing it in the right order or I was missing a character that I was supposed to check on first
I was able to get through the 2nd half a lot easier
Again I feel like a lot of it was just lots of confusion on my part, a lot of the things made a lot sense to me after I went through them
so cute! love the character designs :)
"my god he truly is a handsome young man"
This game was really funny, and I found the main mechanic really engaging. The dialogue segments were the perfect length for me--long enough to make looking for clues interesting, but not so long that I got overwhelmed, and the pinning system was a really strong way to manage evidence.
I definitely think adding the infinite lives mode was a good move, in games like this it's usually somewhat unclear what the game is actually asking you to do so it feels unfair to punish the player for making mistakes like that.
Simply a perfect note for me! Congratulations! I love this kind of game and this one is very well executed! The stoy, the sound, the graphics and their effects, all is perfect! A big thank you to you! :heart:
It was a little challenging for me to try and get the conversations to trigger, the methods I normally use to play games similar didn't quite work and so I had to get help which does, unfortunately, take away from the satisfaction of solving the puzzle. But I understand that time constraints might limit what can be done/expanded on.
Still! I had a fun time with the silly little story!
@tetracold Ah I see, I think that's related to how the mechanics were explained, you expect to need to search for contradictions everywhere. In reality, Penny just needs to know what time the murder was. Most of the interactions in the game are not based around refuting suspects and instead just bringing up lines other people said that migt be of interest, so the Ace Attorney/Danganronpa similarities might be throwing people for a loop.
Also don't worry about not having played this genre before, I haven't either and I wrote the thing lol, it's supposed to be more accessible than the average detective game.
Ooh I have to come back later when I have more time, but I must say I am impressed! I know what a headache it can be to create a story driven gamejam game. But a story driven game jam game with connections and saving / reveling details is a whoole other level! The UI is pleasant and approachable / to the point. I like that. The sound effects are once again 👌🏻 <- perfect
Hopefully I can come back and solve this gruesome murder (I laughed out loud when the cut up pineapple was shown haha) Are those photo's you took yourself? Did you have pineapple during the jam?
(not reading all the quality-looking comments above, don't want spoilers!)
A noir detective game? And it's so cute?! Amazing job!!
This is the most adorable and yet funny noir detective game I have ever played! Everything goes so perfectly together, from the snazzy music to start, the typewriter effects to the witty and funny writing! This game is so amazingly well polished, honestly so many congrats to make this gorgeous and witty a game in this short time! :3
@wouter52 Thank you so much!! I hope you can finish it later! Aside from the characters, the graphics are all photobashes of a bunch of stock photos from Unsplash and Pixabay, I don't think I'd have time to go out there and take pictures AND also write all the story bfvfvb! The pineapple was just one of the fruits I thought would look most gruesome with a knife stuck to it, I think it's a perfect fit x)
BTW my playlist is already very full, so I will no longer play+rate games from people who comment after this point (exceptions made for friends). You can still comment if you want though I always love to hear your thoughts!!
It's both bizzare and a lot of fun to play, from the dialogs to the music to the visuals, 10\10
Wow, this is an unexpected masterpiece! The characters are so endearing, I felly in love with them forever. Little Billy with his lollipop??? are you kidding me. Your mind is genius. The murdered pineapple was the root of so many good jokes from the other characters, it easy so easy to go along with the absurdity and get to the bottom of it. Great job making a game to get lost in. I genuinely want to know more about this whacky little world. Good selects on the music too!
@zigtalk Thank you so much, I'm glad you got so immersed!! The music is actually original too ^^
It quite fun seeing the contrast between the setting and the characters. And the music really set the tone of the game. With how this game introduces these characters, it makes me think that you really had fun with the dialouges. I like that. Great submission!
This game was great! I loved the humor and the different characters. The hints page is a great inclusion for players like me who got stuck at some point. Overall, a really fun and charming game!
Presentation was top-notch here. Quirky characters, compelling little story to unravel. The whole "pin-and-present" system was neat but I do think it could've used some further refinement; a prompt recapping the detective's last thoughts re: what the suspect needs to hear/see to divulge more info would probably make things smoother; that, or locking "Pin" to statements that can be recalled and "Present" to statements that can be challenged (with some room for red herrings!)
Is it weird I feel sorry for the culprit in the end? It *does* seem like it was all an honest mistake. ^_^;
@ryusui Thanks for your review! At least the culprit can't actually be arrested for cutting fruit, so she's safe x)
I think locking the pin feature to specific lines would defeat the point of the game, which is to make you feel that you're unraveling the story yourself with the information you gather. Same with locking "presenting" to specific lines, since in the game it's very rare that you'll be directly countering a specific thing someone said, usually you'll just be bringing up a point for them to comment on. In fact, it doesn't even matter which line you have open with a character, a correct pin will always unlock their next scene.
However I do like the idea of having a little thought bubble with the detective's last thoughts with a hint on how to unlock the next scene! The beginning of the game tends to be very difficult for players because they don't know what is most important, but as soon as they get the ball rolling they can usually get straight to the end naturally. I think a simple feature like this could aid in confusion quite a bit.
I'm astonished you were able to pull a hole visual novel case in such amount of time and with this quality!!! The characters and the art style is very endearing and the premise of the case is very fun!!! I also like a lot the mechanic of pinning quotes from the testimonies to use them against them when needed. I love the first Ace Attorney trilogy and I wish this mechanic had been a part of it aside from presenting evidences. And the music and sound effects really made the immersion even better. I think I've been playing for more than an hour and I'm currently stuck, but I'm definitely coming back to it! Cheffs kiss
Oh man!! Classy as usual!! This pine apple thing cracked me to being with! XD
I cannot believe you've pulled this off! So much content. I will have to enjoy the great extent of this entry later. But thank you, guys!
This is an amazing entry! : ))
@aweskybear Thank you friend! Hope you can finish it another time :3
Beautiful game. Took 30 mins and the unlimited lives but I was able to crack it finally. Can't believe you were able to make this in 3 days. Incredible.
Oh MAAAN ! ! ! I just finished it. This was my longest play-through of any game in the jam. :))
murder-for-dessert-end.jpg
@fupi and @catusfelony, big congratulations for bringing this lively masterpiece to life! I am not only impressed, I was immersed and enjoyed a lot: the story, the visual style, the absurdity of the idea for *killing a pineapple* XD, :smile: the absurdity of the *wife* being a fruit fly (also blond), the absurdity of *the pineapple having a wife in the first place*. **Maan**, you got some talent coming up with stuff like that!
**Overall**: I loved the liveliness of this, the graphics and the vivid characters with distinct traits. Also the fact that you got the theme really REALLY well. Unfolding and getting deeper with the clues is bingo on the theme!
But you know what? Another amazing fact is that you, guys, were able to put all of this into a complete creation in such a tight window! **Bravo**!
Fupi, I have to consult with you, **how do you develop your writing skills**? I am interested :D There were at least 4 times which were quite funny! I even took notes:
> [the chain-smoking or the seek of a thrill] in the beginning XD
> [initial presentation of the pineapple]
> What was the murder weapon... it was a **knife** XD
> [the detective zipping his mouth and throwing the key]
> [convenient pillar] XD
> [the CRAYON image of the monster-slicing-a-pineapple] WAS A BLAST XDDDDD
Oh boy! There was so much life into this!
---
Now, for the feedback part :smile:
It seems **I got stuck 4 times** / that's the number of times I didn't really know what to do (I took notes on this too):
**1**: for some reason *what time the murder was* I wasn't able to present to Penny - **why**? Maybe because I expected what Zamora gave as answers around "being in the restaurant - and when her husband arrived" to have been enough. E.g. in my mind I expected Penny to be satisfied with an answer like "somewhere between.. .."; thus my mind completely ignored the fact that *it happened around quarter past midnight*
**2**: after the old lady gave the clues around the knife - it seems I missed using the *right* one; to my mind ALL/any of them should have worked to get the dialogue (it could be frustrating to not allow this)
**3**: round noise - this must have been the toughest one, since I was constantly thinking of a *knife scratching a surface in circles* (maybe my deranged brain here) but I would have *never* thought that this was Bettany - I know exactly why: - the *brick-walling* feature made me *stay away* of Bettany after the fact - I did not even think to *make use* of her lines after I was "finished" there, thus missing the round sound altogether : ))
**4**: The "red purple monster" from Billy; maybe in my head *bravado* happens right after this - since this was a clear arrow pointing towards the staff member; but that didn't work and I got confused - I totally didn't come up with the idea Billy had to be told MORE about it to reveal.. well.. more :D (usually it felt like I go somewhere else after such interaction, another character); "she may have touched the murder weapon" unlocked the game further, but that was not super intuitive maybe
**A few more ideas** / minor UX points that come to my mind (but again, the game was PERFECT for the time frame it was produced in, congrats!!): - I would have loved an indicator to tell me if a pin was already used - also in the dialogues (maybe also in the bar above) - is this a bug?: I couldn't un-pin stuff when a new scene was just unlocked and I was going through the dialogue - (only if the game is developed for a big release) Hints would make sense in-game / e.g. maybe infinite hints, which reload after usage for 30-60-120 sec) - example: **Round noise -> old legs**
**Thank you for this masterpiece**!! Peace!
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@aweskybear Thank you friend for such a lovely review!! x3 I'm glad you managed to get through it despite struggling a little! I just wanna say from the beginning that it's absolutely fine and expected for players to be stumped at certain points, be it because they didn't pay enough attention to the dialogue, or because they don't have the necessary piece of information yet to progress with another character. That said, there are absolutely some problems of clarity in the writing and puzzle design that make it harder to progress that were not on purpose! I'll go over your points:
1. Zamora tells you many different times, but most of them are irrelevant and only one of them tells you when approximately the murder actually happened, so I think it's pretty clear that's what you need to present to Penny if you pay close attention :sweat_smile: Maybe, since this is right in the start of the game, you don't yet know how much lee-way the game gives you so using the incorrect pins might be frustrating, but this puzzle in particular there is no ambiguity what you need to present I think.
2. This is a legitimate problem of clarity I think. Most characters are very clear on what single line is most important, but since Bethany has the tendency to talk in circles around a subject, she spends quite some time to get to the point and it's less clear what single line is meant to be used. You're not the only friend I've seen have this problem with Bethany x)
3. This is both a problem of UX and pacing. I intended this line by Bethany to only appear after you already know you're looking for a "round sound" for Billy, but there aren't any artificial gates preventing you from finding this line before, so you might not make the connection immediately, and as you said, the Brickwall feature kind of implies that you're done with that character and you won't have to come back. This could be solved maybe with a single line of dialogue by Brennan, or by designing an easier puzzle at the start that makes use of a brickwalled character's pin, so that the player knows this is an option.
4. The fact that you can't bring up the purple monster holding a knife, especially after telling Richard about when Billy saw him crying, is pretty weird! Even though that line by itself isn't incriminating because Penny is just from the restaurant staff, you'd expect her to respond with something at least. Ideally, characters would have different lines for when you use a pin that's *not quite there* but in the right direction, instead of the generic "what are you talking about" response. This would serve as the in-universe hints system, encouraging you to try more pins to find more clues. (I would also do away with the lives system entirely)
5. An indicator that the pin has already been used would conflict with the fact that you can use a pin more than once! I originally wanted the pins to get deleted as soon as you used them correctly, but then I made one of Zamora's lines unlock two different puzzles. Perhaps getting rid of this feature and making each pin only unlock one puzzle would allow me to make that change.
6. Not being able to un-pin stuff when you're on a new cutscene is not a bug, but a hacky solution to something that was! Basically, if you used a pin while on a new cutscene, you would get the "what are you talking about" response and then get stuck, since the cutscene was never allowed to finish. So I just disabled the popups during them. I figures it was fine since you could still pin new stuff, but I totally didn't account for the situation where your inventory was full, my bad!
7. Like I said previously, instead of a hints system, I'd like to make it more in-universe by making the characters give you pointers when you use a pin that's *almost* right, serving as the hints!
Thank you so much for the compliments on the writing as well ^D^ Ever since making The Rock I've been reading and writing a lot more, so I guess it's just practice. This non-linear game was the toughest thing I ever wrote, and my friend helped with the dialogues as well!
@fupi *Compliments deserved*!
Agree with your reasoning! Yep, that thing with a different character response for a "wrong" pin is spot on! For example: my confusion would have been cleared with sth like "Couldn't you be more specific??" from Penny :D about the time of the murder if I pointed "other" times. But anyway, the game is *perfect* for 3 days, so @fupi, @catusfelony, you guys know how to do stuff : )))
Cheers! Enjoy the rest of LD :heart:
This game was special. Firstly, because it was one of the first games I set aside to try out and I waited a long time for some time to play it. Secondly, because we played it as a family during a trip. Everyone gave their theories and solutions to the dialogues. Each person had their own suspect and their own story. We ended up creating many subdivisions for each dialogue. It was really fun!
No comments on the technical part. 5 for everything!
Congratulations and thank you very much for the experience. :heart: :heart: :heart:
@euler-moises AWWWWW your comment just made my day!!! I'm glad our little game was so captivating for you and your family! <3 I'd love to have been a fly on your wall and heard all the theories you were cooking up hehehe
Holy hell, that was amazing!
Super polished, congrats. I could literally point out anything and say that it was great. Dialogs, art, music, mechanics and all that. It was a litle bit confusing for me which way the related lines should go (from whom to whom) and I died on the first try, even though I used some hints. Oh yeah, hints, what a great feature to add to your game, thank you very much. I got stuck a few times, but I liked the difficulty anyway.
Hats off.