The Good Doctor by Sestren 2013-03-30T10:40:00
More of a story than a game, but I enjoyed this greatly. The concept is great, and the graphics and sound create a creepy enough ambience. Good job.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Christina Nordlander
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Subject Is Compliant, Subject Is Defiant | compo | 163 | 3.69 | 3.38 | 3.41 | 3.95 | 4.14 | 76 | ||||
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Red and Gold | jam | 426 | 2.69 | 2.26 | 3.16 | 3.05 | 1.42 | 1.35 | 2.04 | 2.88 | 75 | |
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | 10 Second Defence | jam | 414 | 2.83 | 2.96 | 2.78 | 2.91 | 2.29 | 2.00 | 3.18 | 82 | ||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Pure Green | compo | 975 | 2.77 | 2.21 | 3.44 | 4.18 | 2.55 | 2.64 | 2.57 | 69 |
More of a story than a game, but I enjoyed this greatly. The concept is great, and the graphics and sound create a creepy enough ambience. Good job.
The controls are rather difficult to deal with, but other than that, a fun, difficult vertical platformer. The randomly generated platforms are innovative and provide replayability. I like the way the player is scored depending on how high they got, too.
I may come back to play this one more once I have more time after the voting ends.
First game I play in this comp, and it's a zinger! The attractor mechanic is innovative (at least in my experience), and the gameplay is fun and challenging, with enough new features added to keep my attention. The combination of simple-but-colourful graphics and tough gameplay reminds me of the freeware games I'd play on my dad's computer way back when.
Going with the minimalist theme, I like how the villain is a lot more complex-looking than the good guys. Er, squares.
Seriously, my only complaint is that the cutscenes are a bit overly-long. Also it's a bit hard, but that might just me being bad at this.
Kudos for a great little game.
This is a great deal of fun! In the most nail-biting sense of the word. I'm definitely going to come back to this and see if I can beat it. Great set-up for a game, and the graphics are lovely; they remind me of the point-and-click adventures I grew up with in the 90s ("Guilty" and the like). That's high praise. The only thing I didn't like about the graphics is Sgt. Burden's very thin legs. Very good audio. The game itself is excellently tense.
A couple of typoes and grammar mistakes in the writing. Other than that, I enjoyed this immensely.
SPOILERS
I felt like a bastard when I had to slaughter the dog to provide food.
First of all, I'll just say that I'm no good at Inform and wouldn't be able to create an IF game in such a short time.
That said, while this is a solid entry, there's nothing that really wowed me. The writing is extremely sparse (fair enough, given the theme), the set-up has been done before, and the security system in the facility seems a bit lax. Also, "paper" really should be a synonym for "slip".
Hope I'm not sounding too negative. You clearly know how to make IF games; I just wanted a bit more plot and/or innovation.
I like a good stealth game, and this one has a neat mood and (minimalist) graphics. The writing was very nice. My only complaint is that the difficulty is pretty unforgiving in places.
A solid entry. The tutorial level is well implemented, too.
SPOILERS
The ending made me a bit melancholy. Good job. (Though I'm still somewhat in shock that the MacGuffin wasn't a potato. Not that this is a bad thing, though.)
Wow... that's a heartbreaker. Very original set-up, and as for the graphics: this is the first game in this compo I've given a solid 5-star ranking for graphics. I particularly love the balloon girl, and how the balloon bursts when Dean... does his thing.
Unfortunately, I can't give this game a very high Overall score, since it seems to be unfinished: Story Mode has no other sprites, and Game Mode just runs out of sprites after a while.
I really hope you keep developing this game after the compo. The graphics and mood in this piece are amazing.
Low on interactivity for a Twine game, but awe-inspiring in terms of writing and mood. (Of course, that's hardly unexpected for Porpentine.) Now that I think about it, I see how the incessant clicking mimics the protagonist's effort of climbing.
Nice use of graphics, too.
Now this is how you do minimalism! Nearly as addictive as "Robot Unicorn Attack". The music is very good, I like the background, and there's enough challenge here to keep me coming back. Very nice.
A very good puzzle game. Took me a while to figure out how to play, and even then I mostly got through the levels on trial-and-error (I'm not very good at this sort of puzzle).
Other than the difficulty, I really can't find any flaws. The graphics are obviously minimalistic, but the colours are appealing. The music and sound effects are excellent. Thank you for creating a very enjoyable game.
The storyline and the way it's implemented in the gameplay are absolutely hilarious. Excellent use of the theme. I love the fourth wall-breaking, the Gideon G. Graves-esque bad guy, various other things I don't want to spoil. The protagonists are quite nice characters as well.
On the downside, the final boss battle is just too hard for me (and you have to restart from scratch if you lose). I may come back and try to beat the game later, but I just don't have those rhythm skills.
Also, the graphics, while not bad, are a bit lacklustre (could be put down to the minimalist theme, I guess). The battles seem to be a bit badly scripted: the enemies just seemed to attack one of my party members, and would do zero damage a lot of the time. There are some typoes and other technical problems with the writing (for example, Kaye is referred to as "he" when she levels up).
All in all, it has some flaws, and the rhythm stuff is ludicrously difficult for me, but the plot and humour are top notch.
This is a very good game. My only complaint is that it was sometimes quite hard to gauge your jumps. Other than that: nice graphics, nice use of powers, challenging obstacles, entertainingly melodramatic plot. I had a great deal of fun beating it.
SPOILER
It could have done with a more rewarding ending than just the "you have won" screen, but I appreciate the fact that you put an original song in there.
I enjoyed this a lot. Not the most original set-up, but the story is immersive and mostly very well-written (the writing felt a bit bare-bones in a couple of places, but that's about it). The ending is very powerful.
Very nice work on Twine. I didn't find any technical flaws, except the slight problem of the "infinite dinner".
Great work!
Forgot to mention...
SPOILERS
I like the way you allow the player to input information towards the end. First time I've seen that in a Twine game.
Heh, thanks! That's a more positive response than I was expecting. I was kind of torn as to how far I could go towards the minimalism requirement without making a complete troll entry.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
@Alex Camilleri:
I actually used two different stats for "crawl" stamina and "leap" stamina (because, well, I'm lazy and still pretty new to this Twine thing). If you run out of "crawl" stamina but have some leaps left, you can still make it to the end.
Innovative concept, nice graphics (I especially like the hallucinations and the Game Over screen), and great audio. The way your breathing speeds up after you hit the snow is a nice touch, and I find the music quite catchy.
The only downside is that it's really hard. As others have said, some checkpoints would come in handy. Try as I might, I keep dying on level 2. (Clearly, I need to do more cocaine.)
Very interesting idea for a game, with tons of detail and an involving plot. Nice work on the ASCII and general 80s DOS game ambience, too.
I might come back later and see how the other decisions pan out.
A bit hard; still haven't beaten it. (I keep dying on the level after the first save point.) Might come back to this later.
Other than that, probably the most purely minimalist game I've played so far in the comp. The core mechanic reminds me of a simpler version of "Eversion". Fun to play, difficulty aside.
I'm kind of neutral to the music, but I appreciate the extra effort of putting it in.
I like this idea. Makes me wish I'd thought of it, actually.
And I'm always happy to see more Twine games.
Could have done with some attack animation for clarity (but then, it is a minimalist game), and like some other players, I got to the end and wasn't sure whether I'd won or lost. Other than that, it's OK. The graphics are atmospheric, and I like how you actually made the characters look wounded, though the blood itself was a bit simplistic. I wasn't very fond of the sound effect, but the music has a nice retro vibe.
Not massively original, but a fun and challenging platformer with some nice use of the platform-switching mechanics. Once you iron out those bugs, this'll be a good little game.
One nitpick I have is that the sound effects were quite a bit louder than a music. Which is a shame, because I liked the music a lot.
Very original gameplay, clever puzzles, and excellent mood. Unfortunately, I haven't beaten it yet. (I couldn't figure out how to progress from the level where you climb the wall: I pushed the button, but it didn't seem to do anything.) The music is perfect.
On the downside, while the story pulled me in, your English grammar needs a bit of work. It's the kind of thing that will come with practice.
I enjoyed this. Nice way to create a mood despite the minimalist graphics, and the gameplay itself reminds me of some (good!) shareware games from the 90s.
I enjoyed this. You've done a pretty good job on the film noir murder mystery ambience. Reminded me a bit of the old NES game "Déjà Vu". The unusual writing style works pretty well. The story isn't hugely original, but you've created a good sense of horror. In game terms, this is solid Twine work.
Nice way to bring in potatoes, too.
I must admit I was a bit disappointed to find that
SPOILERS
... I got a "to be continued" message the moment the story seemed to be going somewhere.
END SPOILERS
But that just testifies to the story sucking me in. Nice interactive story.
"Deja Vu", even. Dang messageboard not allowing accents...
Good-looking, and the central joke is funny enough, but there's not really a game here. And you should really be able to move, even if you meet an untimely death anyway.
A business simulator, eh? I lost on Day 8; might come back later to see if I can make it further.
Not massively interactive, as games go, but I like this sort of thing. The humour is top notch.
Innovative idea, and very unlike most games in this compo, but there's not a whole lot of fun here. Programming is solid (it's missing quite a few words, but I guess that's always going to be the case), but adding up the score at the end would help. Also, it's easy to game the system by typing in the same word over and over. A version that only allowed using each word once would be an improvement.
By the way, it's spelled "douchey".
Fit the theme, and a pretty innovative idea.
Gameplay is nothing special (though it's an OK way to kill a minute or two), but I like the various graphical tricks you played with the blocks, and the increasing difficulty. The fact that the blocks could topple over was a nice touch. In short, very simplistic, but polished.
SPOILERS
I also like that you gave the option to play "pure" or "evolved" once you unlocked the "evolved" level.
OK, turns out I quit just before things started going crazy. Think I'm gonna have to increase my score a bit...
Spellcheck: "franticly" should be "frantically"; "out tibias" should be "our".
Quite a good interactive story. I'm not very interested in erotica, so I was happy to find that this wasn't your average sex scene. There was enough variation to make me play through it for all the different storylines, too.
My one complaint is that the writing skill fluctuates a bit. At its best, it's absolutely arresting; however, it can get a bit overblown in places. There's also a bit of an overuse of the word "off", occasionally several times in the same sentence. (And "off of" isn't necessary: you could just write "off" in those instances.) I'm probably judging the writing very harshly, but a game like this stands or falls by the quality of its writing.
That said, when your writing is good, it's very good indeed. The central idea of this story is going to stay with me for a long time. I also like how it's possible to reach one ending without encountering the fantasy/surreal element.
Dayum. I love adventure games and mysterious stuff, and the two browser screens gimmick gets full points for originality. Beautiful graphics, beautiful audio, definitely minimalist.
The only bad things I found were a couple of typoes ("this strange fruit if dripping water"), and
SLIGHT SPOILERS
The ending was a bit abrupt. But I guess you had to end it somehow.
END SPOILERS
All in all, one of the most original and atmospheric entries I've played so far.
I'd like to take issue with that. What you have here is definitely a viable game, as I would define the concept. It just needs a more involved ending (even just a "you manage to escape from this strange world" message would work for this type of story).
This is a very good minimalistic Twine game. Chilling and fairly original plot (at least in this particular medium), good writing, the right amount of branching. I enjoyed it a lot.
And I hope you're doing all right.
Pretty good, if not all that innovative. The storyline and writing are very funny, and I like Yari. The battles were just challenging enough to keep me coming back when I got beaten. The graphics are nice; my only problem is that the fighting animations are a bit uninspired. Also, the font wasn't very easy to read.
Apart from those nitpicks, nice work.
When I first saw the set-up, I was expecting a joke game (if a funny one), but once the actual game started, it was surprisingly tricky and engrossing. Good job.
Pretty good game. I like the set-up, and the graphics and audio are good, but the gameplay itself didn't hold my attention for that long. Probably a taste thing. Nevertheless, a solid entry.
SPOILER
Very nice way to bring in the potato theme. A point off for misspelling "potato", though. (Or maybe that was the drugs' fault.)
This is one of the most interesting setups I've seen in this LD, and it works well with the simple gameplay. A beautiful and poetic concept.
Unfortunately, the gameplay itself is a bit lacklustre: the controls aren't that great, and there's no way of telling when you'll just fall through the floor. Also, there are a couple of slight mistakes in the English ("that is how it lives" doesn't really work, for example). Which is a shame, because apart from those slight errors, the messages are beautifully written.
In short, there are some issues that could be fixed with more polish, but the concept and mood are excellent.
... and reading the other comments, I realised that I missed the fact that the reflection shows you false floors and other hazards. Sorry about that; will score up accordingly.
I like how you managed to create actual puzzles in Twine, something I'm not very good at. (I like the additional puzzle content in the post-compo version, too.) On the downside, the plot is rather run-of-the-mill, and the writing is very sparse and has some typoes. Still, nice use of puzzles in an interactive story.
Now this is something I haven't seen before! Fun idea, and very neatly executed. I like the audio, though the scream effects got a bit repetitive.
Love the title, too.
Great concept, and the gameplay and graphics are nice. Unfortunately, once I ran out of ammunition it became unbeatable, as far as I could tell. Perhaps I would have done better if I'd had more experience with the Metroid franchise.
Great job!
This is one of the more innovative games I've played in this competition. The plot is great, writing quality is good to excellent, and the music is simple and beautiful, just the way I like it. While the gameplay change feels a bit sudden, it is a great way to illustrate the process going on (trying to avoid spoilers here).
The only downside is that the second part of the game takes quite a long time, and is not really that entertaining (though, like I said, I applaud the way it works in plot terms). It could be cut down to 1/4 or so of its current length and still work great. (Maybe you did it intentionally to stop the player from trying to get all the endings through all the endings, for all I know.)
SPOILER
Also, I tried for "corruption" in the "to escape" ending, but no ending text showed up. No idea whether that's a bug or a feature, but still a bit of a disappointment.
END SPOILERS
Despite my nitpicking about the length of the second part, this is a great game. There seems to be an impressive variety of endings; I'm gonna have to come back and check them all out.
My main problem with this game is that the writing, while not terrible, has a part of grammatical mistakes (for example, it should be spelled "Cyclops"). Just read more English and you'll get the hang of it. Also, the graphics felt a bit sloppy; for example, the walking animation continuing even when the knight is standing still. And a "shield" animation would have been nice. I understand you probably didn't have time for such details, but it might be something for future versions.
Apart from those nitpicks, however, the gameplay is great. The core concept is original, and you've come up with some great puzzles here. It's just challenging enough.
In short, graphics and writing are nothing special, but great idea, gameplay and humour.
SPOILERS
The endgame is a very good puzzle. I'm quite relieved that the Cyclops didn't regain health when my character died.
And the ending... well, that's by far the funniest thing I've seen in this compo so far, and I'd be surprised if I come across anything funnier.
I just realised that I made some weird typoes in my comment while criticising your writing. "a part of grammatical mistakes"? Bad, Chris, very bad.
Pretty decent as a joke/mindscrew entry.
A ten-second adventure? Excellent! Great music and good graphics, and took quite a few tries to beat. I like how some of the encounters had multiple solutions.
I'd say more, but I liked pretty much every part of this game. The humour is what really stands out, though.
Absolutely great idea, and the graphics are perfect. It gave me the same horrified fascination as an actual broken game. A great mood: just wandering around this glitched world with no idea what I'm supposed to be doing.
Unfortunately, the graphics make the jumps very hard to gauge. I didn't play to the end, but I very much enjoy what I've seen.
Inconsequential, but good-looking and polished, and kept me entertained for some time. The only technical problem I could find was that sometimes the music (which is good, by the way) seemed to start up at random.
Your games tend to be among the most visually gorgeous ones at LD, and this one is no exception. I especially like the animated cannons, but everything in this game looks great. The music is good. The possession mechanic makes for great puzzles.
I don't have anything negative to say about this. It might have been fun to have more of a storyline or a conclusive ending, but that would just be an added bonus (and the increasingly difficult puzzles created a nice sense of progression, anyway). Thank you for creating this.
Lovely in every aspect. Perfect visuals, perfect audio, perfect mood, very clever puzzles. Kind of reminded me of Michael Ende's "The Night of Wishes" (being about a cat and a clocktower), even though Clockwork Cat is trying to do the complete opposite of the heroes of that book.
My one complaint is that it's rather short. But when you come across something as lovely as this, you'd be a fool to complain.
Excellent use of the theme, excellently tense, great use of beam-spam, and with some bits where you had to stop and think. (I confess, I played it in Friendly mode. Couldn't figure out how to get past the first mouth-creature on Normal.) The graphics are probably a love-it-or-hate-it thing, but they worked for me, especially the vegetation and the crystals.
The voice acting, while good, got a bit repetitive after a while (a risk any game with voice effects runs, I guess), but the music is awesome.
For all that, it seemed to lack the... something... that keeps me coming back to your Twine games again and again. Well, it was made in 48 hours. And I do love that beam-spam.
Forgot to mention... that one eye-person lying dead in the dead end of a corridor?
Brutal.
A bit too difficult for me, but this is an all over great entry. Lovely concept, and the graphics look awesome. Very impressive. The title is hilarious, too.
I love how our hero can survive point-blank missile explosions, but boredom kills him.
Cool concept (though the theme wasn't particularly noticeable), and very interesting to play with.
I didn't get very far, but that's a problem with me, not with your game.
It's really cool that you made the engine yourself. There's quite a bit of mood here, and I like the idea of the device, but unfortunately I have no idea how to complete the game. I figured out what the device does, but I don't know which way to go.
Implementing more verbs might be a good idea for the future. Once more, I'm impressed by anyone who develops a homebrew text adventure engine.
I love it when indie games meet Indy games. Great title, and very original gameplay mechanic. Very clever stuff. The graphics are OK, if nothing special, but I really enjoyed the music and sound effects. Guy's dialogue is consistently hilarious, at least as far as I got.
It does need a bit of polishing, though. I gave up on the third room when I kept getting killed by the mummies (I might come back to this game later). Speeding up the actions after the first time is a great idea, but makes you liable to getting killed by the mummies since their movement isn't speeded up accordingly. The falling floor bug needs fixing, too.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, this is a pretty excellent set-up, but it needs a bit more work post-compo.
The controls made this far too hard for me. I gave up when I got to the long lava pool on the second level. Other than that, it's pretty fun and addictive in an "I'm gonna make it through this game if it kills me" way. The graphics are very minimal, but the use of colours is nice. The gravity gun mechanics are well done, but jumping is a bit floaty (which can be good in some circumstances, bad in others).
It's a bit easy to snag on the walls, but then I guess that's realistic for rough stone surfaces. Again, snagging could mean survival at some occasions and death at others.
In short, pretty fun, but frustratingly difficult.
It's... a tower defence game! Kind of basic, and you don't really do much other than placing your towers, but it was still viscerally satisfying to see the skeletons and demons getting mowed down. The intro animation is very attractive.
This is pretty addictive! There are some features that elevate this over the run-of-the-mill platformer entry: for example, showing the distance to the encroaching sunlight is a nice feature. The increasingly difficult levels create a nice tension towards the end, and the levels are well-designed: I found that most of the difficult areas rewarded tactics rather than just persistence. The way you're chased by a wall of sunlight reminds me of "Eversion". (Though in that game it was a wall of darkness, so... a reversion of Eversion?)
The sound effects could be a bit less basic. The character and scenery art is pretty basic, too (though the all-black scenery works well, seeing how it's before dawn), but I love the background.
A fun, well-paced, polished piece.
Not massively original (except for the time limit and time extensions), but I enjoy top-down mazes like this one. The dialogue is funny, and the character sprite looks good.
Unfortunately, a few levels in I ran out of keys and had to restart, since items didn't respawn when I died. Now the link to the game doesn't work at all (I get your logo, then just a black screen).
Fix those technical problems, and this will be a very fun game.
Some questions were reasonably funny, and there's nothing wrong with the concept, but it didn't seem to add up to anything particularly interesting.
Now I'm wondering whether there's a way to win...
A pretty fun experience. The graphics are crude, but charming, and the writing made me laugh a couple of times. The puzzles are pretty basic, but most have taken some coding skills, and none of them are bad. I liked the ending, too.
Nothing groundbreaking, but a decent enough Flash game.
@Zwergesel: Dang. I never tried that command, assuming that it would default to "go east".
Anyone know if you're allowed to reupload debugged versions of your game after the deadline is up?
At any rate, congrats on finding an exploitable bug!
@IndigoWolf: Thank you very much!
Fixed the bug.
@Joror: Thank you!
The only verbs you need to use in this game are fairly straight-forward ones: TAKE, WEAR, TURN ON, TURN OFF, OPEN, PUT [object] IN/ON [object], plus compass directions (and up/down).
@Jupiter_Hadley: Thanks a lot!
I'm watching your video now and seeing some interesting games. Thanks for the service you (and other video makers, of course) provide for us.
@4xisblack: It's the future, so the glue is strong enough to do that. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :-)
@The Evil Cult: If I polish it up to make a post-compo version, I'll definitely put in more synonyms and sort out all the problems you mentioned (you definitely ought to be able to put glue on the knife). Thank you very much for your critique.
@SkyTheCoder: The connection is supposed to be that you only have ten seconds until the hitman arrives at your flat. (I'm not sure whether you would actually be able to do all that stuff in ten seconds, but that could be explained by your enhanced reactions caused by the implant.)
Thank you very much for your positive critique. I will definitely have to make a post-compo version now, and I promise it will be a lot better.
For the record, a post-comp version of this game can now be played here: http://www.ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=o3l8ac72owqdhj66
Do play that one instead: it has better implementation and hopefully more intuitive hints.
Not the kind of story I'm usually interested in, but the quality of the writing is very high. One or two sentences felt a bit melodramatic, but that's about the extent of my nitpicking. Time permitting, I'll come back to this to see how the story changes if I make different choices.
A typo: "laying on a threadbare blanket" should be "lying".
I was wondering when I'd come across a game that had actually been made in ten seconds.
Time constraints (and the attendant typoes) aside, this is pretty fun. The bear path made me laugh a few times. Very short, but obviously that's the point.
Ehh... I managed to get 10.05, I don't think this is physically doable for me.
Decent visuals, but just one really difficult task. "Keeper" by sparkleswirl in this compo is a more substantial (and forgiving) game using the same basic mechanic.
As horror games go, it was a bit generic, and felt like it was trying too hard to scare me (jump scares *and* creepy nursery rhymes). The two-button control system is rather unintuitive.
However, it did create a creepy mood, even if lines like "This is awesome!" killed it a bit. The real-time limit created a sense of tension you don't usually get in text adventures, and it did keep me playing until the end.
Very silly, but the concept made me laugh out loud, and the cover art is just amazing.
I feel you've kind of shot yourself in the foot by giving it a title that people are guaranteed not to remember if they want to search for it later, though.
The writing is excellent, and the gameplay gets reasonably challenging. I like how you made both a Story and an Arcade mode. On the whole, though, this game felt a bit minimal. (Maybe you should have made it for the last Ludum Dare.)
Good use of the theme.
Kind of basic, but I'd be interested to see you develop this in line with your original ideas, which sound like they could make quite an interesting idea. As it is, it's pretty polished, and the gameplay is fun for a while, but it's not very challenging, which causes it to get boring.
I love the concept, and the graphics in the intro are neat.
This is very good. Pretty original set-up, good graphics, and generally very enjoyable and appropriate to the theme. I like the seamless day/night transition (great use of colour) and the sparkly effects.
Fiendishly difficult towards the end, but not aggravatingly so.
My one nitpick is that the checkpoint sound effect is a bit loud compared to the rest of the sound. But heck, that's one small nitpick for an otherwise great game.
Love the title, too.
This took me a while to learn how to play, but once I got the hang of it, it turned out to be a clever little puzzler. Pretty original premise. Unfortunately, the graphics felt a bit boring and hard on the eyes. Having the instructions on the screen was probably a good idea, given the relative complexity of the gameplay, but they made it feel a bit cluttered.
I never managed to beat level 5. Maybe I'll come back to this when I'm not so tired.
I didn't see any bugs.
Addenda:
Would be nice to have some way of showing when you've chosen the "wait" command.
Needs some proofreading: "bery good"? Also, you "defuse" a bomb, not "diffuse" it.
Now this is the kind of game I like! Science fiction, tense and claustrophobic plot, infection bio-thriller, moral dilemmas, text-based puzzle solving. Good stuff. The visuals are nice, and the music is very good and sets a great mood. Seriously, just listening to this was a joy. The timer is a good source of tension.
Unfortunately, the end result is a bit less than it could have been. The writing quality is variable: good at best, cheesy at worst. (The "game over" messages are probably the best writing, in my opinion.) The solution to the problem comes across as a bit more B-movie in style than you'd think from the sombre premise.
On a technical level, the implementation is OK, but has some problems caused by the format used: for example, it would be good if actions disappeared once they were carried out. (And there's a bug in the university where a new pamphlet appears every time you talk to the student.) But, hey, 48 hours put a limit to how much you can program.
Typoes: "claustrophibic", "quandrant" (just once; you spelled it right the rest of the time), "Centriod".
tl;dr: despite some niggles with the implementation and occasionally schlocky plot elements, I enjoyed this a lot.
Finding out that the pamphlet thing was intentional only makes this game better. :-)
I don't know if this is just the web version, but the scrolling was very slow when I played it, making the "run" theme a bit weird.
Apart from that, this is gorgeous, with beautiful graphics and music, and fairly original gameplay (the inability to go back, the time bonuses). I'm impressed that you managed to make it in just three days.
Good luck developing it more in the future!
Pretty good. I liked a lot of the humour (such as the silly things you could do while preparing to die, or the response to running away without warning people). The way the story defused (pun intended) some of the more typical action-hero responses felt pretty realistic, too.
The best ending was a bit too silly for me, but humour is always a matter of taste.
On the downside, it's not much of a game: getting a good ending seems a bit more dependent on trial-and-error than logic. Also, the writing itself isn't very impressive. This isn't about technical issues (I know you're not a native English speaker; neither am I, for that matter), but a bit more descriptiveness and mood could go a long way. On the other hand, the comedic bits work well.
In short: nothing outstanding, but very funny in places.
Very, very Porpentinesque, this, almost enough so as to be a parody. (I have no idea whether I would have believed it was made by her if I hadn't seen the author's name.) Cool subversion of the theme, very good writing (again, if you like Porpentine's style), and very good Twine work. I always like to see Twine games that pose a bit of a challenge, and this one did.
I could have lived without the more disgusting bits, but that's a taste thing (oh gods, Chris, don't think about "taste" in this context) and not related to the quality of your work. Very well written and coded.
Also, grammar nitpick: "put pay to" should be "put paid to".
I... don't know how to review this. Rest assured, my ratings speak for me.
Excellent idea (first game I've given 5s for innovation and theme in this compo). Getting to see the story so far is great. The playtime is so short that this is more like watching a video and getting to influence it in a small way, but heck, this isn't a bad thing. I love the retro Zelda-style graphics, and the music is beautiful.
Good luck with this project!
Great idea, and I like what you've done with the text (it took a few tries to get used to, but that's part of the challenge). Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot to it. It would have worked a lot better with more meaningful conversation topics, I think.
A couple of weird words: "unfornately" (unless that was intentionally slurred), "glooming".
Looks pretty polished (the main character sprite looks a bit ugly, but I've seen far worse), but the controls are very difficult to manage.
Using the actual "Indiana Jones" theme is kind of... not good.
Full marks for innovation. I was a bit unsure about it at first, but once I got into what was going on, I enjoyed it a lot. More of an artwork than a game, but it's a good artwork.
The audio is, of course, great. At first I thought that the main narration (yours?) was a bit unpolished, but the slight lack of flow added to the spontaneity. The use of music and sound effects is also great and not overdone.
I unfortunately don't have the equipment or the experience to do a sound recording for you, but I wish you all luck with this project.
Also, that Leonard Cohen poem is indeed amazing.
The moral choice is kind of a well-worn topic, but the story is very well-written. (I did catch a typo, though: "begining".) I like how you worked in the ten second theme.
I liked the graphic. The music is pretty good, but I can't help but feel that it didn't match the mood of most of the story.
I'll probably come back to this game to see what happens if I choose differently.
I feel inclined to love this game just because I had something similar happen to me recently (except without the shoes).
A well-written slice-of-life story with quite a lot of choice involved. I found two endings; I appreciate how, just like in real life, there's not a sense of clear "win" or "lose" conditions. Thanks for an enjoyable couple of minutes.
Didn't have anyone to play it with, but as far as I can tell, it would be fun.
You've done some very cool stuff in Twine here (speaking as someone who has Twine but is very far from having learnt all the tricks). Nice use of colours, visuals, timers, etc.
Some of the story snippets were pretty good (the war zone bit was probably my favourite), and I like the story/story pun, but as a whole, this seemed a bit too incomprehensible for me. I've got nothing against absurdity and symbolism, but here, it all seemed too vague to add up to much.
Hard one to rate: I enjoyed playing it, but I can't quite put my finger on what I was doing.
Great work on mood, visuals and audio (and dang is it creepy). It's a bit short and slight for a game (there's plenty of stuff you can interact with, but most of it doesn't do anything), but judged as a story, it's very good. I found one happy ending (though "happy" seems like the wrong word to use about this game) and finished. Not sure whether there are more.
Thanks for giving me nightmares!
Of all the bomb defusing games I've played in this LD, this is one of the better. I like the bells and whistles you've added to the usual Twine set-up, and the timer is great. Nice work on puzzles, too.
Typo: "goto" should be two words.
SPOILER
The ending felt a bit abrupt, but it still works.
Very simple, but pretty fun. The graphics aren't bad: they fulfil their purpose.
My record: 9.
Pretty good story, well-written, if rather short. A bit too non-interactive for a Twine game. I like the way you incorporated the theme.
Can't figure out how to get the second ending. (I thought it would come if you didn't leave a message, but that doesn't seem to be the case.) I might have to come back to bash my head against this game some more...
Never mind, found it.
Nicely made (and with appropriate music!), and pretty immersive, even if the place where it immersed me wasn't one where I particularly wanted to be. That said, being depressing was probably the point. It will stick with me for quite some time.
The theme felt shoehorned in. The writing is very minimalistic, and it became a bit dull to read after a while, but some lines were very well written.
Very simplistic, but the main mechanic is pretty original. Reminds me a bit of "Ikaruga". I had some fun playing this and figuring out tactics for not getting killed. The graphics are nothing special, but I like the main sprite. My main problem is that the controls are a bit unresponsive and floaty.
It's cool that you used art and audio in a Twine game. The art is crude, but manages to get a creepy feeling through.
However, there's barely a game here (only one choice to be made, and getting a successful ending tells me that this was only the prologue to a longer story), and the writing itself is a bit silly.
A tip for the future: if you want to convey a feeling of horror, make the main character helpless in the face of monsters, needing to hide or flee rather than having access to loads of weapons. Also, mentioning things like HP tends to break the fourth wall.
@Vagabond: Ah, I expressed that badly. I meant there's only one occasion where you get to choose, not that you can only choose one thing. (I know the latter isn't true, because I replayed it to get all the endings.)
Not extremely original (though short-term power-ups are a neat idea), but a very good and substantial version of those extremely-hard puzzle platformers. The retro graphics are nice, especially the background. Cute title screen. Well coded and all around polished.
Turned out to be a bit hard for me, though: I gave up on level 19. Also, the controls seem a bit floaty (even if you haven't got the Low Gravity power-up). Nevertheless, very good work.
Kind of a generic horror story, though it works pretty well in building the mood without any overtly scary events. The puzzle makes good use of Twine's suitability for adventure game making.
A few typoes: "lept" should be "leapt", "la derniere dix" should be "les dernieres dix" (*I believe*; French isn't my first language), "ton vies" should be "tes vies". "its'" should be "its" (no apostrophe). Also, a fact nitpick: dynamite wasn't invented until the 19th century.
SPOILERS
The ending was very abrupt, and felt rushed.
Good job on programming, and the writing is absolutely hilarious, but I used up two of the items and still am not quite sure what I need to do to win the game.
Possible bug:
SPOILER
After firing the grenade at the enemy ship, I still got a message saying that the grenade exploded inside the cannon.
Unfortunately, this keeps crashing my browser, but I think I played enough to get the hang of it. Gameplay isn't that innovative (though the kill-or-cure mechanic is pretty neat), but in terms of graphics and sound this is very polished. Very good work!
Good story, even if it felt a bit truncated, and the writing is pretty good. I really like what you've done with Twine here (even the typeface is nice), and the use of graphics and audio is really cool. The little puzzle with the lock is clever.
The bit about the Roswell saucer made me laugh. Nice way of showing that this is an alternate universe.
My main problem is that I felt like I was thrown into the "rescue Manning" plot too abruptly. It's possible that I missed clicking on some link that would have made it feel smoother, but that's still a bit of a problem. Also, I felt lost most of the time, but that's how a person who'd just been teleported to a moonbase would feel, so I won't hold that against you.
In short, a nice (if occasionally slightly pulpy) science fiction story, and a great piece of Twine work, but a bit confusing.
Ack, I just read the text and realised that this *isn't* Twine. Disregard my comments about the aforesaid engine.
Just... wow. This is excellently polished, with great visuals and audio. Can't believe this was made in 48 hours. The dark comedy is very much to my taste, and the writing is perfect. Also, this is the first first-person game I've played so far in this LD.
My only problem is that the mouse controls are very sensitive, making it easy to swivel too far and end up confused as to which way you're going. Also, there isn't a whole lot to the gameplay. The tests are often challenging because of the time limit (it took me a dozen tries to beat the "downward spirality" one), but nothing that really requires thinking or tactics.
That's a minor nitpick among many good bits, though. This is both one of the most professional-looking and funniest entries I've played. Kudos!
The graphics could use more polish (at least a death animation would be appropriate). However, I like the audio. This isn't the first game I've seen in this LD with the "maze with a limited period of light" scenario, but it's still a good idea, and the gameplay is good: right amount of challenge, right length.
The big demons got an "oh shit!" reaction from me, which I'm sure was your intention.
Also, the Devil's dialogue was pretty funny.
What a waste of time! It's great.
Reminded me of "Cookie Clicker", except I enjoyed your game. It's certainly a realistic depiction of time-wasting. Speeding up time gave me a sense of achievement, and it was fun seeing what new stuff I could get.
The humour is probably the best part of the game. The suit guy's pitch was hilarious.
Possible technical issues? Sometimes time progression will slow down when you buy new items, without explanation. Also, sometimes the percentage at the top of the screen will show slowing, even though the stats in the text say it's been speeded up. Not sure whether this is a bug or just me being thick.
Thanks for wasting half an hour of my life! (Now, maybe I can get that Corinthian leather room...)
EDIT: I just realised that the intro screen explains that time goes slower when buying certain items. I looks stupid now.
Also, typo check: I caught an "it's" that should be "its" at one point.
Very simplistic graphics, but quite a fun little tactics game. I did well up to Level 3, then I got slaughtered. The enemy AI is pretty good. Feels a bit like something you might have got on a collection of freeware games when you bought a PC in the 90s (not meant as a slam, I used to love those freeware game collections).
Needs a Game Over message when all your dudes die.
This has been a public service announcement: do not smoke while flying a plane unless you have first checked for gas leaks.
This is... I hesitate to use the word "perfect", but this is just so good in every aspect. Slight and silly, but great graphics, audio, humour, replayability... I think that covers it. The graphics are lovely, and the writing made me laugh out loud several times. Yeah, I love this.
SPOILERS BELOW
The funniest bits were probably the consequences of the spell and the hoverboots.
Bugs/problems: some of the endings interact in odd ways. For example, getting the pillow causes death, even if you've already cast the invincibility spell. Not a major problem, just something to think about if you guys make a post-compo version.
I was wondering when someone would make a game like "Half Minute Hero" for this compo. It took me a while to get used to the gameplay, and at first I was wondering whether it was even winnable. Then I found out that items carried over after you died, and you could get time extensions, and... what can I say? This is an overall good game with an excellent concept and great use of the theme. I'll be happy if you win the competition.
Forgot to mention, the character graphics are lovely.
I enjoyed this! Pretty challenging, and it wasn't very easy telling the different clothing articles apart during the time limit, but then, it's not meant to be easy.
And hey, I'm a Capsule Monsters trainer now!
Not the most awe-inspiring thing I've seen in this LD, but polished, nice-looking and very playable. I'll probably come back to this one to see if I can do better.
... pretty speechless. This is definitely one of the best contributions I've played so far. Fiendishly difficult towards the end, but that just made getting past the hurdles all the more satisfying. The horror is perfect.
My one regret is that I didn't play it after dark. (I like being scared.)
There's a lot more I'd like to talk about (the excellent mood, the audio, the design of the monster), but like I said, I'm speechless. You'll get high ratings, hopefully that's good enough.
Excellent, excellent work. Will recommend to my friends.
SPOILERS:
I thought the ending revelation was a little bit cheesy. It's fairly common in certain types of indie games to have the game turn out to be a metaphor for depression or a symbolic dream. Something like this, with its great gameplay and mood, would work well on its own merits; sometimes you don't need a plot, IMO. But this game is so good in all aspects, I'm not going to complain.
I really like the premise of this game, and the title is great. However, the jumping is very unresponsive, and in combination with the sometimes unfair traps, that just makes the game too hard.
If you're going to continue working on this after the compo, it has definite potential: the graphics are very good, and I like the 8-bit ambience of the sound (though the walking sound effect is a bit loud and obnoxious). Just make the jumping a bit easier.
One of the most professional and polished entries I've played so far in this LD. Great concept, nice retro style (makes me nostalgic for "Gauntlet"), and excellent graphics and sound.
Unfortunately, it's also very hard. I still haven't beaten it, though I intend to get back to it at some point. This in itself isn't a flaw. A bigger problem is that there's quite a bit of difference in difficulty between the different worlds: the "Pacman" world is so easy you almost have to try to get killed, whereas the Metroidvania platformer is a lot harder.
Still, that's about my one nitpick about this game. Congratulations on a very good entry!
You're not giving yourself enough credit. It doesn't really push the envelope for platformers, but it looks very good and gave me a challenging few minutes. The environment has a lot of atmosphere, and the main character reminds me of Trilby from Ben Croshaw's games. The clock being reset when you touch the light is a nice touch (though it feels weird that "orange" is a lower danger level than "yellow").
The only things I didn't like was that jumps could be difficult, and I wasn't too fond of the jump or death sound effects (didn't mind the walking one).
The only thing that actually felt rushed was
SPOILER
the ending. But that's a minor nitpick, since the rest of the game was so good.
Very simple, but fun and with good graphics. I like the character sprite: simple enough not to need a lot of animation, but without looking cheap. The levels are attractive, too. Nice learning curve, and some good level designs.
A bug I caught was that you can sometimes get stuck on the edge of blocks. Also, not a bug, but I was stumped on the level with two buttons for quite some time before I figured out that some blocks were illusory.
Fun, and a nice use of the theme.
This got challenging towards the end! Simple but cute graphics, excellent music (the sound effects were basic, but the music more than made up for it), and the gameplay is great and (as far as I can tell) pretty innovative. One of the more polished entries I've played so far.
Nitpicks: movement was a bit slow, and given the importance of the button sound effects, they should probably be a bit louder. These are very minor nitpicks, though.
I was stuck on the second jump for ages until I realised that I could jump while in the air. Once I got past that hurdle, this was quite a decent, hard platformer, if not pushing the envelope in any way. The graphics are a little bit crude, but not bad, and I like the main character sprite. I enjoyed the obvious excuse plot, and it's cool that you made a different tune for each level.
I'm proud to say I beat it, but my thumb aches now...
Very simple, but it's the kind of concept that appeals to me, and I liked beating it.
Would have been nice to have some way to restart without having to close and reopen the window. Or maybe make an extended version where the game randomly chooses from a selection of spells for replay value.
Nice work.
I didn't get very far in this, but I'm very impressed. Great coding of a lot of entities, awesome graphics and audio. The RTS gameplay reminded me a bit of "Dune II". I may well come back to this after the compo to see if I can do better.
At first I thought "OK, this is a decent platformer, but nothing really stands out". Then I pressed the first button, and I realised how the time mechanic came into play.
Still not the most memorable entry, but every element is polished and high quality. The difficulty is a bit frustrating, though. (Obviously, that's going to vary from person to person.)
Also, a typo in the intro screen: "staars".
Interesting idea, and well coded, but I prefer more descriptions and mood in text adventures. The one-word system felt like an obstacle to imagining the world (though it was a very interesting interpretation of the theme).
Still, a decent game, good set-up, and I felt happy when I won.
Looks good, in a creepy way (the whitespaces at the end of my vision were a bit distracting, but I don't know whether there's a way to fix that), but it felt a bit empty, and I just solved it through trial and error.
I'm not very good at mapping areas in my head, so the non-Euclidean nature of the maze might be lost on me.
Very good audio.
Not really my kind of game, but still very good for the time frame.
I'm pretty amazed with what you've done with Twine here: real-time events, cycling links, the weird symbols looking like glitches, the works. The art is very professional and evocative. All in all, extremely interesting and well done, with immense amounts of mood. The concept is intriguing.
However, there doesn't seem to be much to do in the game, unless there's a way of getting off the station that I haven't found yet.
I'm impressed, and will definitely read the story at some point.
Typoes: "You are sitting a jet black bench" is missing an "on"; "infront" should be two words; "enscription" should be "inscription".
Very interesting idea, this. The gameplay was... weird. It is definitely a game, insofar as there is a solution that leads to victory, as well as sub-optimal branches that lead to failure, but achieving success seems to be a lot more about trial and error than problem-solving. It's frustrating, but it also helps the dreamlike mood, and I felt motivated enough to play through until I got the happy ending.
On the downside, the writing is very simple and barebones, and there are quite a few typoes, especially early on.
Difficult to rate, but an interesting idea.
Gah, I feel sorry for the poor guy.
Very good graphics and nice elevator music. Figuring out how to gain points was fun, but there wasn't really enough challenge or reward to keep me going for long. Still, very well made.
Beautiful graphics, audio and mood. Gameplay felt a bit lacking, but reading the hints other people posted, I realise that there were indeed puzzles, so that's down to my own obtuseness.
All in all, it didn't really gel with me, but it is beautiful and artistically produced. Kudos.
I played the first couple of levels and thought "OK, this is a decent puzzle-platformer, buying power-ups is cool, but apart from that it isn't really anything I haven't seen before". Then I got to the "splitting headache" level, and it moved up a couple of notches in terms of originality.
The graphics are ultra-simplistic (granted, I know that's because of real-world circumstance), but not ugly. The music is good.
It's hard as heck, though. I haven't finished it yet; might return to it later at some point. The main problem is moving back to the start of a (fairly large) world when you die. Also, this is a minor nitpick, but since coins respawn when you die, you end up with loads of coins long after buying all the power-ups.
All in all, a nice retro feel and some cool innovations.
Now that's an original idea! The graphics are great. The music annoyed me a bit, but that's pretty appropriate for a lot of game music of the era.
On the downside, the gameplay gets a bit repetitive (even though you introduce quite a bit of variety), and it's not always easy to know where you're putting your finger down. Still, a solid game, and very impressive for your first LD.
I love this game, and I didn't like "Cookie Clicker" in the least. However, the time limit is an original touch and makes it a lot more tense.
This is all around great. Great graphics, excellent powerups, and the news headlines are absolutely hilarious.
I still haven't beaten it, but I'll definitely be coming back to this one.
One of the best and most professional LD entries I've played.
Didn't The Simpsons predict this game once?
Silly, but a fun diversion nonetheless. Good graphics, and nice use of public domain music. Difficulty seemed OK (though it would have been nice not to be sent back to the beginning when you died), but having the perspective flip around seemed unfair to the players.
So yeah, pretty good work.
I like how you worked in both this and the last LD's themes.
Simple game, but well implemented and bug-free the time limit makes it nicely challenging. Not a whole lot of replay value once you've won, though.
The graphics are a bit basic, but bring me back to the good retro days of platforming. I like the subtle walking animation, and the shattering door animation is great. Jumping is a bit floaty. Good use of the theme, and the game is generally really well put together given the short time limit, with good level design and power-ups.
There's no way I'll be able to beat that boss, though. You could probably have cut its life bar in half and it would still be a challenge.
Wow, my life in Twine form...
Yet another "LD game about making an LD game" entry, and there's not a whole lot of interactivity, but the narrative voice is funny and readable enough to make it well worth a playthrough. And, like I said, I've been there.
Not sure what was going on with the random sexism around halfway through. It didn't seem ironic or... anything, really.
All in all, funny and not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. (Though I'd advise you to avoid random woman-hate in future entries.)
Typoes: "varaibles"; "tought" should be "taught".
OK, having read the other comments (as a rule, I try not to read other people's reviews before playing entries), I understand that the slam against women was meant as characterisation of the protagonist. Like other people, I think you could have phrased that better, but it makes a lot more sense now that I know the context.
As "requisite LD entries about making an LD entry" go, this one was kind of mediocre. Some funny moments, but the ending twist, while original, felt more trollish than funny to me.
Still, not bad. Four stars on theme.
@tobbez: Yeah, when I played through it for troubleshooting I realised it was very click-heavy.
Thank you very much for your comments, all of you!
@Gungnir: More branching for the training would definitely have been great, but I kind of bit off more than I could chew with this game, and was lucky to even get the main story finished on time.
@PaperBlurt: You're right, within hindsight it should have been shorter. This is the first simulation game I made, and it was rather hard for me to gauge variables such as length, challenge level etc.
The original idea was actually for the game to be even longer, which wouldn't have been a good thing.
Thank you very much for your in-depth critique.
@Erkberg: All those are very good suggestions. I would definitely have put in more of that if I'd had more time.
SPOILER
Actually, if you take the option of running at night, the human has a low risk of getting assaulted by muggers. The outcome depends on their level of strength and remaining fatigue. If they're injured, going to town the next day will open the opportunity of visiting the hospital.
Great mood. Graphics are a bit basic, but not bad. The audio is where this really stands out, though: probably the most unsettling sound I've heard in a long while.
I didn't progress very far, but I might come back to it later.
The story is rather simple, and the writing is kind of... not bad in any way, but not really memorable most of the time. The back story when you're at the Mexican restaurant felt rather verbose. All in all, it felt like a rather standard Twine story.
SPOILER
Then I tried playing it again, and... oh, very nice. I've never seen that done with a Twine game before. You definitely get an extra star on Innovation from me. (I'd still like to go back and see how other choices would have panned out. But heck, such is life.)
A lot better than you give yourself credit for. The idea is innovative, and the gameplay is pretty challenging without being unfair or broken. The levels look well-designed to me.
My only issue is that it's a bit hard to control your character (I had to retry the level where you move the brown block quite a few times, just because it was so easy to slide over the edge). Also, once I got to the level with the disappearing floor, I couldn't progress any further: I couldn't go to the right, but if I jumped down the pit I just bobbed up and down without dying or progressing. Not sure whether that was a bug or there were no more levels.
Still, quite an entertaining game.
I don't know which number level it is, but it's a fair bit into the game. It's the one that has a narrow lava pit at the start, then a section of the floor near the end of the level that falls away when you step on it (that section is visibly separate from the rest of the floor).
Hope that helps.
Very short, and I kind of wish there were more of a challenge to it, but all that can be put down to the time limit. The graphics are absolutely brilliant and lovable, five stars on that. The writing is very funny, and Steve is an excellent hero. I like the hacking.
By all means keep making games. This is great.
Forgot to mention: excellent Simpsons reference in the start screen.
Very well-written, with a lot of realistic detail. Very nice use of music. On the downside, the story has been done before, and the plot is very slow-moving at the start. Those are minor nitpicks, though.
I might play again later to see if I can get a different path.
A couple of typoes: "remnats"; "prys" should be "pries"; "her Mamaws" needs an apostrophe. Also, the title of the game is spelled "Olde" in-game, but not on this page.
Looks very professional. I like the concept, though the plot is a bit too silly (unless "Bob" has a more sinister reason for marooning you in space). As far as I can tell, space fights aren't needed: just exploring space and trading for fuel is tense enough for me.
However, as far as I can tell, there's no way of figuring out how to get to Earth, so I can't rate the game very highly. However, it would be cool if you made a post-compo version with more stuff implemented.
I like the setup: very original use of the theme. The game itself is kind of a standard adventure game, but with solid puzzles. It would have been cool if your lack of limbs played a larger part in the puzzles, though (I did get a bit of "I can't do that with only one arm" in the first level, but that's about it). The graphics are pretty good, with nice swirly star effects. The writing is funny.
The difficulty feels about right. Would have been nice to have a better interface and a more natural way to progress (without having to, say, click on "way" to finish a level), but all that would probably have been hard to implement within the timeframe. Having a way to skip through cutscene dialogue would be good as well.
Typo: "therefor" should be "therefore"
SPOILER
I like how you allowed "good" and "evil" solutions for some of the levels. That shows an extra level of polish.
This is great! Good use of the theme, excellent music, enjoyable writing, and a generally cool concept. The character art reminds me of "Order of the Stick". I see no downsides to this game.
I didn't win (I'm pretty bad at whodunits), but I really enjoyed playing.
Not really a game so far, but graphics and physics are good (those beach balls look lovely, and the character sprite looks quite good in a simplistic way), and it's a fun take on the theme.
I like text adventures, but this one really needs more commands. For one thing, you should be able to look at, touch, perhaps listen to the egg. Also, if the dog is present at the scene, it should be mentioned right away, not only once you type help.
Well coded and fits the theme, but needs more substance.
Once I got into this story, I enjoyed it a lot. Space exploration (and space marooning) has always held a lot of power for me; stories about mental disorders likewise. The plot was interesting enough for me to replay it for all the choices.
However, the story confused me a bit, and I'm still not sure I get all of it. This may have been the result of me playing the "Awake" version before the "Alone" one. I'm still not entirely sure whether the protagonist of all the storylines is the same person.
The only thing I didn't like about the graphics was the flickering at the start. (Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Twine to suggest a fix.) The other graphics are good enough for me, and I'm impressed with the way you did animation. On the other hand, sitting through the animations gets a bit much when you replay the game many times in a row, even if they're not all that long.
Typoes I caught: "coms" should be "comms"; "as gravity would bare" should be "bear"; "ponding" should be "pounding".
A very involving story, and an interesting way to combine Twine with graphics. I think you rose to the challenge.
Not sure how to rate something so personal.
The Twine text looks very good. The writing is very simple, but this is a story where flashy stylistics would be out of place. Some beautiful phrases.
Powerful.
Jag spelade det på svenska!
Extremely original concept; Twine is perfect for this kind of storytelling, but I've never seen it done before. The writing is good in a low-key way, with some beautiful descriptions and great use of detail (such as the "Frankenstein" bit). By and large, it felt very realistic.
I like the way you used the music link.
Good story and fits very well with the theme. Plus, we Swedish Twine users have got to stick together, right?
Very good and innovative. Quite hard, too, but I made it to the end.
Excellent work.
The graphics are excellent, the animation is outstanding, and I love the audio: perfect and very atmospheric. Once I realised what the scream was, I laughed out loud. The blackout death scenes appealed to my sense of humour, and I love the death messages.
It would have been nice to have more commands (such as interacting with things without using an object), but that might be a lot to ask given the time frame.
Unfortunately, some of the puzzles are very unintuitive. This bugs me because 1) it makes the game needlessly hard, and 2) I'm a big fan of adventure games, and I get annoyed when non-fans wrongly characterise adventure games as "just a bunch of nonsensical object puzzles". Good adventure games have puzzles that make sense. Some of the puzzles here make sense, but others I just don't get (for example, how you get the lever).
Also, I found several typoes and grammar problems (for example, "misterious" should be "mysterious"). Using an English-speaking proofreader might be a good idea in the future.
Those nitpicks aside, this is a very polished and hilarious entry.
Also, giving the player several different places to use an item (for example the coin) and getting stuck if choosing the wrong one is kind of cruel, but every replay is short enough that it's not a big problem.
Oh, I think you may have misunderstood me. I didn't mean that you guys aren't fans of the genre (it's very clear that you are, or you wouldn't have made this kind of game). I just meant that point-and-click adventures with silly puzzles play into the misconception that all point-and-click adventures are like that.
For the record, I think LucasArts games are examples of adventure games with excellent puzzles. They may be weird puzzles that would never occur in the real world, but 90% of them are still possible to figure out through logic and the hints provided in the game.
For the record, I didn't think all the puzzles in this game are illogical. The place where you use the screwdriver, for example, is very easy to figure out and just generally intuitive.
Also, I certainly don't want to seem like I hated the game. It's one of the best entries I've played this LD in terms of graphics, animation, audio, mood and humour. And I'm just a sucker for point-and-click adventures.
Fairly short and simple, but after having made an Inform game for the previous LD, I know how much work it takes. Props for implementing an NPC. The writing isn't flashy, but some of it is very good (especially the description of... *that* zombie). I'm not a big fan of zombie stories, but you've got a nice mood here. I also like the fact that there were several endings of varying happiness.
I got stuck for a while trying to get in the car. (I don't know about you, but if I were getting in a car in the middle of a zombie apocalypse with my only child, I'd close and lock the car doors first thing I did.)
Typoes: "a keys"; "gutteral" should be "guttural".
Other nitpicks: some rooms listed exists that you couldn't actually use (for example, going from the kitchen to the hall, or from the downstairs bathroom to the playroom), and the downstairs bathroom wasn't listed among the exits at all. (Not that it matters, since there was nothing important in there, but still.)
Other than that, and the difficulty with the car, nice work. Nothing groundbreaking, but an entertaining short horror game.
Possibly unintentional comedy point:
SPOILER
The fact that you can talk to Sophie after she's zombiefied, and the generally carefree nature of that conversation.
This has been on my "to play" list ever since I saw those graphics: I love the classic adventure game vibe. The only thing I don't like is that the characters' breathing animation is a bit too pronounced, but that's a minor nitpick. I love how they visibly slump as the gas keeps entering the air.
The concept is great. The more general backstory has been done before, but is still powerful and tense.
Audio is excellent, among the best soundtracks so far this LD.
You've mentioned that you're going to add the ability to click ahead in dialogue, and I think it would also be good to be able to click out of one character's dialogue menu without selecting anything.
More of a story experience than a gameplay one, but it's a good story. One of the more memorable entries I've played. And like I said, the graphics and audio are made of gold.
Grammar nitpick: "intoxicate" really should be "poison".
SPOILER
So there's no right or wrong solution, eh? Mean, but feels appropriate to the situation.
Would have been fun to have the option to shoot yourself, just for completeness's sake.
... and now that I think about it, I realise that the exaggerated breathing animation could be because they're suffering from the effects of the gas.
Don't press the submit button before thinking, Chris.
I have no experience with creating a program to create your game, but it's certainly not something you see every day. On that front alone, this gets a lot of points for innovation. The graphics are good, and while the sound isn't original, you use it in a very atmospheric way. The plot is cryptic and interesting.
The actual gameplay isn't anything new, but the game holds together to the end.
Very interesting entry and strongly recommended.
Very nice opening. Once the main plot starts, it's not incredibly original, but that's not really a problem: getting to live an entire life in Choose Your Own Adventure form is a fun and solid idea. The writing is good, and I like what you've done with the background colour.
I gave it a low Overall score because of its unfinished state (I still haven't found a storyline that ends), but this is good enough to deserve a finished post-compo version.
Some typoes I found: "being flying" should be just "flying"; "birds feels" should be "birds feel".
Took me a few tries to figure out how to do it, but I did manage to win. (It felt a bit weird not to be able to move the bomberanians before you fire the grenade, but I guess that would make it too easy). Cute idea, with good graphics and audio, and I like how you've made randomly generated levels. Not really my kind of game, but I won't hold that against it.
OK, I'm laughing hard. Might be the funniest LD entry I've ever played. The gameplay isn't anything innovative, but not bad (though I would have liked some sort of visible hitpoints; I got killed quite a few times), but the comedy is excellent. The graphics are simple, but funny: the only thing I'd improve is the walking animation.
SPOILERS
My favourite part was the bit where the game calls our browncoated hero out for going on a killing spree over a TV show. The executives' dialogue was an absolute riot, too.
Great job!
Forgot to mention: best take on the theme so far.
As an office worker, I know his pain.
Damn but this is good! Great graphics, great audio, and the dialogue is hilarious. Probably one of the most polished entries of this LD. My only nitpick is that the AI of the other office workers is a bit dumb. (Also, it would be great to have even more things to use as impromptu weaponry, but that would just be an additional goody; the game is perfectly good as it stands.)
I haven't beaten it yet, but I'll probably come back to it. Can't let the job creators win.
Are you a fan of "I Wanna Be the Guy", by any chance?
Good game, with a solid and simple hook. It's very hard, but the platforming is well-constructed, not just the kind of "let's throw a million near-impossible jumps at the player and see what happens" that many people come up with when trying to make a hard platformer. The graphics are good, though I would have liked a bit more character animation (still, that's a lot to ask for 48 hours).
My main problem is that the trampolines were very hard to use. I figured out that I should walk onto them instead of jumping, but a lot of the time they just didn't work. Also, a bug: when I died from running out of time, I would restart with 0 seconds.
Apart from those problems, it is a very enjoyable entry.
I liked this a lot. The writing is OK, not really outstanding (a bit too wordy for me), but the descriptions of the string are great. Story-wise, it's very good. The initial plot felt a bit too similar to "Death Note" for me (which you admittedly point out), but I like your story more. You do a good job balancing the various sides of the moral argument. The story itself is pretty linear, but I think the ending provides enough options to make all players satisfied.
I got a bit creeped out when the story presented me with real-world leaders to kill: for some reason, that feels more disturbing to me than the various LD entries about going on a killing spree in the workplace. But it feels realistic that Mark would think about killing them, and after all, the game doesn't force you into killing. (And it makes sense that the concept of a magical death-string should freak me out.)
A couple of typoes and other nitpicks: "bizzare" should be "bizarre"; "diagree"; towards the end, you're missing a space between "said" and "half-heartedly". Also, dialogue should end with a comma rather than a full stop when followed by a dialogue tag (e.g. "she said").
In the end, I chose...
SPOILER
The person who was going to commit the most murders or rapes later on. If I'm going to get a magical way of killing people, I guess I might as well use it to save some lives.
In short, a very good and unsettling story.
This game has tons of mood; the whirring of the grinders made me viscerally afraid of what would happen if I fell into one, and I'm not usually that easy to frighten. The graphics are good, with good use of colour to indicate danger or goals, and the music has a nice sci-fi vibe. The concept is great.
On the downside, the first few levels are very easy: you can blunder your way to the exit with little challenge (though that changes soon enough). Also, I got annoyed at how my character apparently can't travel through spaces that look wide enough for a human.
I could use the top-down view anywhere I wanted at the map, not just in the yellow area. A bug?
Nitpicks aside, an immersive game, and very polished given the time frame.
This is definitely one of the best games I've played this LD. Extremely challenging, but good enough to keep me going till the end (playing as illiterate, at least). And then, that ending...
SPOILER
Until the ending, I didn't think this game had anything more to say about disability than "being disabled is hard, yo". (Sure, some people may still need to learn that lesson.) Then I got to the cowled figure telling me that maybe I could read if only I tried hard enough, and the theme hit me right in the gut.
You take no prisoners with this game. Excellent work.
For starters, I think this game needs a bit more instructions. The introduction says to use the "action key" to gather data, but it took me several random tries to find out that meant the Shift key (on my computer, at least). Likewise, it doesn't say anywhere that you need to use the Space bar to turn on the flashlight.
That aside, I really like the graphics, and the sound is incredibly atmospheric. I like the concept, and the game is positively dripping with mood.
A couple of nitpicks after the spoiler space.
SPOILERS
I got a bit disappointed that I didn't find out more about what had happened aboard the ship. The only information we get is vague stuff about an "incident". Also, while the monster shadows were unsettling enough, it felt a bit silly to see that they were just Xenomorphs: creating your own alien design would be less mood-breaking.
Apart from that, this is a solid, creepy game, just the way I like them.
Forgot to mention a bug: the data score carries over to the next playthrough if you die.
The setup of this game is pretty great, and it's professionally done, but at the end of the day it's a typing game. Requiring skill, certainly, but not really something I'd personally do for fun.
Props for very funny text, and I thought the music was good. Nice graphics, too. It could have done without the text appearing onscreen one letter at a time, but that might be a personal thing.
So yeah, professional, well-written and funny. Just not my kind of gameplay.
Wow, that's a powerful experience. You should definitely be proud of it. It looks professional, and most of the graphics are great. Excellent writing: the family members get quite a bit of personality, even the father. I like how you put in random events (at least I assume they were randomly generated; I only played a couple of times). I can see this game being used in debate/education about poverty.
On the downside, it took a while to learn what all the meters meant, and I'm still not sure I've figured it all out. But that's my problem, not yours.
A good gaming experience, without sugarcoating the unpleasant reality. I'll come back and see if I can do better next time.
Original concept, and I ended up getting quite involved in the fate of the tree. It got a bit boring after a while, though.
It would be interesting if you made a post-compo version with more elaborate follower sprites (and dances). However, I really like what you've done with the daytime and seasonal changes, and the rain cloud is great.
Really professional entry: nicely animated sprite, well-designed levels. The jump sound effect is good, though some music would have been nice.
Unfortunately, jumping could be better, and getting sent back to the beginning every time you die feels a bit harsh. I might come back to it later, but right now, it just seems too hard for me.
First of all: "lose" is spelled with one O.
The graphics here are stunning: I'm really impressed with the character sprite's animation (including multiple death animations, and the one where you yank the bullet out of an enemy), and the backgrounds are good. The music is good and conveys a lot of mood. Funny concept and great title.
Unfortunately, I found the controls so unresponsive that the game just got too hard to play: firing your gun takes too long, and jumping can be problematic as well, especially when you have a monster after you. In combination with being sent back to the beginning when you die, that made it too hard.
So yeah, great on looks and mood (especially those animations), but needs better controls to be really playable. It would definitely be worth the effort.
I read it aloud, sitting alone in a room with nothing lit except my monitor. That was pretty darn ambient.
A simple but intense story that fits the theme well. It's definitely a situation I never hope to be in. Pretty long and deep for 48 hours. The writing is pretty good: a couple of sentences felt a bit melodramatic or clumsy, but the majority of this game is well-written. I like the font choice.
Typoes: at one point, you have "dam" instead of "damn"; "asI" should be two words; "beasts claws" should be "beast's claws".
I don't really have any other nitpicks. There's a nice balance between powerlessness and choice, and the entire thing is very powerful.
SPOILER
I like how the ending credits gave the option of seeing the other ending without having to replace the entire thing.
Probably the best text-based entry I've played so far this LD. The writing is excellent (I was taken aback by "trying to hear the voice inside you that already knows", and the story is original and powerful. I really like the Twine layout, too, and the white-on-black text adds to the sense of claustrophobia.
If I have a complaint, it's that the plot is very linear. That said, it's appropriate for this story. I just tend to expect more branching plots in Twine games.
I feel a bit depressed now. Can't decide whether it's because of the darkness of the story or because I'm jealous of your writing skill.
Found a typo: "recogonise".
SPOILER
So there's no way to get a happier ending? Harsh. Clever, though.
At first I thought this was a joke game, but once I got a couple of powerups I realised that this is a pretty cool idea. It is incredibly hard, but I can't tell whether that's bad game design or just me being stupid.
Graphics are a bit basic, and some sounds would be fun, but it's a very cool concept. High scores on innovation and theme. I might come back to it later to see whether I can get any further.
You've added quite a lot of nice bells and whistles to Twine here (I like how the image moved depending on which room you went to), and the intro sequence is cool. While the storyline has been done before, it is quite dramatic. I do like that the game gives you a concrete goal early on, before you get too bogged down in the various characters' in-fighting. The amount of writing seems to be pretty much right.
However, there was nothing to really pull me in. The story introduced me to a large number of characters, but there was nothing to make me care much about them. Having a bit of description rather than just dialogue would probably help a lot.
Also, while I haven't beaten it yet, there isn't a whole lot of gameplay here. It's pretty much "explore the house and try not to get killed".
The dialogue is pretty cheesy, with a lot of multiple exclamation marks. I have to admit, however, I got a laugh out of: "He's a gangster! The most powerful man in the city! He must have more than just some hookers and coke!"
In short, nice mix of Twine with visuals, and the concept isn't bad, but suffers from cheesy writing and no real ability to do much. I might come back and try to beat it later.
List of typoes and grammar mistakes:
"powerfull" should be "powerful"
"she has famouos to be addicted to drugs" should be "she is famous for being addicted to drugs".
"Enter in the basement" doesn't need "in"
"this jews is all this motherfucker have here" doesn't really make sense (and it should be "has", not "have").
"ganster" should be "gangster"
"this morons" should be "these morons"
"John try" should be "tries"
"Not as much I can find here" sounds like it should be "Not as much as I can find here"
"Russell shoot in Rodney" should be "Russell shoots Rodney"
"bodyguards deads" should be "dead bodyguards"
"se" should be "see"
"aorund" should be "around"
"Scott" isn't capitalised at one point (in the "go to the hall" scene).
Very lightweight, but the music is excellent.
Also, I'm annoyed now. I want to go back and try again!
Very simplistic, but a decent game anyway, and the squares you can shoot add a nice bit of variation. The only thing I didn't like was the numbers in the middle of the screen: some kind of life bars at the top and bottom would be more attractive.
Basic, but not bad in any way.
Firstly, the concept of this game is absolutely brilliant. Wish I'd thought of that.
Great job in creating puzzles in Twine. It all holds together well. I laughed at the grue joke.
A nitpick: I can apparently feel the breeze even though I only have the sense of hearing. (That should actually be pretty easy to fix: just change it to "you can hear a slight breeze".)
Typo: "ith" should be "with".
A very innovative and clever entry. I had fun solving it, and not so much fun being jealous of you. :-)
I saw this in a recommendation, and, what can I say? Every word is true. Great graphics (remind me of early Zelda), beautiful music. I like how you've shown the character's aging: not only in the character sprite, but also in landscape colour washing out and the music going away. The speeded-up aging makes a lot of sense and is a nice challenge. I can't really say much about it, it would dilute the experience.
I have no idea whether it's winnable, but I'll be coming back to this one after voting has ended.
I think I'll wrap up my voting here and end this LD on a high note.
A standard but very solid Metroidvania. The fact that doors stay open when you restart is a nice touch. (I thought it was odd that you still have to pick up items again, but since you get a time boost when you do, I'm not going to complain.)
The graphics felt a bit too basic for me, though that's a taste thing. The music is pleasant, if a bit repetitive.
A complaint: if I press Enter and get the "Return? yes/no" menu, I get sent back to the start of the game no matter what I pick. Apart from that, I didn't find any bugs.
I haven't finished it yet (couldn't figure out where to go after I got the Ring of Power), but it's a very nice little game, and very big and deep for 48 hours.
Unique, involving story, and great use of colour and graphics. A bit linear, but you can't have everything.
Definitely one of your best games. (I may have enjoyed "Alone/Awake" more, but that's because I'm more of a science fiction fan. This story has better visuals, though.)
I'll be very surprised if this doesn't get in at least the top ten of one category. Excellent music, original concept, really funny writing (several of Frank's lines made me laugh out loud). The graphics are amazing, and the puzzles are innovative and fresh. It got quite hard, but the levels are short enough that replaying isn't much of a hassle.
If the game has any weaknesses, it's that the theme isn't that strongly connected to the gameplay (it's definitely there, but it's not central). Also, the ending is a bit weak compared to the game itself, but that's minor.
Strongly recommended to everyone who isn't squicked out by the plot.
Cool that you made it in Scratch (first time I remember seeing an LD game made with that site). The title screen looks great, and the assets are pretty good-looking. Innovative theme. Sound is good, but the "inflate" sound effect is a bit too loud.
Unfortunately, I found the gameplay a bit boring. It didn't really hold my interest for long. Still, nice use of the theme and a pretty innovative game.
Excellent music, and the graphics are appealing, if a bit simple. The growth mechanic is well designed, and the whole thing is nice and polished. I'm not all that fond of this type of game/toy, though.
I like that you can grow new corals on top of the ones that die.
Love the title and the title screen. Fun concept for a game. The graphics and gameplay are kind of bland, though the "throw money at problems" mechanic is pretty innovative. Might have been nice if the big payment obstacles had a more unique design. The music is okay, kind of grating, but I love the "ka-ching" sound effect.
A nice little game. I like the simplistic graphic style (creating bullet-hell for the aliens is visually satisfying) and colour scheme, and I like how you did the background.
My main problem is that once you're past the hurdle of the beginning, surviving becomes very easy: you can easily pump out money and ammo at a greater rate than you're consuming them. It did feel like the difficulty started perking up again once my base got very large, so perhaps the game gets very challenging once you approach the edges of the map.
But I nitpick; this is very impressive for a game made in 5 hours.
Very silly, but I understand that it's due to the circumstances.
Well... I like Jedi, and the ending is pretty effective. Not very memorable, for better or for worse.
I like a good Japanese-style RPG. This one isn't incredibly innovative, but it's fun and polished, with a nice variety of spells and craftable objects. The controls are mostly easy to get the hang of.
My only big problem is that it gets very hard a bit in, since items and healing are extremely expensive relative to your gains after each fight, meaning that you have to grind the easier fights to even stand a chance.
Not to sound too nitpicky. I enjoyed this game, and might come back to it later to see if I can beat it.
Good level design and cool mechanic. Some of the graphics might need touching up, but the backgrounds look very good, and I liked the fact that the aliens grow when they're hit by your ray. Nice font in the messages, too. The music is pretty great; I got a kind of 80s NES vibe from it. I like that you implemented a reset button, since you're going to lock yourself out of victory a lot.
Something to improve: would be good if the levels reset themselves when you died.
Very nice entry.
Excellent and innovative control system. It got pretty hard (you could have called this "I Wanna Be the Bear"), but you were generous enough with checkpoints that it didn't feel frustrating. Funny storyline, and good music, even if it ended up a bit grating.
The graphics in the intro are kind of annoying, but I realise this is a stylistic choice.
In short, an excellently innovative platformer/frustration game. Hope you score high. (High... geddit...)
I enjoyed this a lot. The story seemed a bit generic at first, but once I got to use the device, it became a lot more interesting. For the record, both time loops and telepathy/mind-control are plot devices I find really interesting. The characters felt a bit flat (the annoying boss, the hot love interest...), but they work well in such a relatively short story, and we learn they're not as straightforward as they appear. The writing is consistently good; I particularly liked Robert's monologue, and "miss the open-door window of opportunity".
From a technical perspective, I'm really impressed by the [SPOILER]time loops[END SPOILER]. I don't know how to do that myself. The visuals are good. I could have done without the characters having different font colours, but it didn't go as far as to annoy me, either.
Found a typo: "cafetaria".
I played to a few different endings, might come back to see if I get another one. They were all short, but pretty interesting.
Recommended for everyone who likes interactive fiction.
Spoilers below:
I tried using the "love me!" function on Lydia to see what would happen, even though it made me feel creepy. I like that the game acknowledged that mind-controlling someone into loving you isn't really a happy ending.
@Jod: I figured this was probably Twine. And I'd love to hear how you did it.
@Jod: Awesome, thanks for the info.
@justinooncx: Heh, thanks for playing! And yes, your choices determine the outcome, and what the player character believes about their own identity in the end.
Thank you very much!
@phi6: I did feel like I could have fitted more content in there. I might make a more (much more!) polished post-compo version at some point.
@Crashmore Studios: That is high praise! My idea was that the Treatment Room is in fact computer controlled (there's no person behind those loudspeakers), but I could have made that clearer. Of course, the protagonist wouldn't know, either. I did get quite a bit of inspiration from The Prisoner. (Other influences were "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" and Porpentine's game "Cyberqueen".)
As for everyone else, thank you very much for your nice comments!
Thank you very much!
@oz2mura: I'm flattered! Just a word of advice if you're looking at playing my other games: give "Pure Green" a miss, it was an experiment, but sucked. "Red and Gold" isn't too brilliant either (I think I had a pretty cool idea, but the actual gameplay ended up dull as hell). My other games might be worth a look, if you liked this one.
@Xanjos: Good point, I do feel the story ended up a bit too wordy in places.
Thank you for your review!
This is one of those ludicrously polished and beautiful entries that make us other participants jealous. The gameplay itself is a pretty typical tower defence game, but there's just so much content to build. The monochrome graphics are great and quite ambient (the spirits are pretty scary when you can only see their silhouettes), and the construction animations are beautiful. Building things felt quite satisfactory in an "Age of Empires" way.
Some music to go with the mood would be awesome.
Definitely one of the more professional entries I've played this time. Please keep making games.
Simple game, yet surprisingly addictive; I can see this being popular with kids, actually. The backstory is funny and original. I like that it speeds up with time. The music is excellent, though the sound effects are a bit too loud.
The graphics need work. They're not without charm, but they're lacking clarity: for example, I wasn't expecting the potion to come out of that end of the pipe, and it cost me a few vials figuring it out.
A bug: the score didn't reset itself after I died. Also, some ingredients are spaced so closely that you can't avoid grabbing both at the same time. I also found a bug where the hand would get stuck and glitch at the top of the screen.
Those problems aside, I played this a lot of times, so the gameplay is addictive enough.
If you make a post-compo version, ingredients with different effects would be cool (for example, a rare one that counteracts toxicity).
The two-button set-up is great and pretty original. You got a lot of different uses out of it (the tennis game is great).
On the downside, the story is pretty slow to get going, making replaying a bit of a chore. The graphics need some work, though I like the shot of the protagonist in the mirror, and the white-on-black scheme in general.
The writing is consistently very good, and I ended up feeling for the characters, even if most of them didn't get a huge amount of development. Like I said before, the plot is fairly slow, but not bad. Not much audio, but what there is is nice and enhances the game.
Found three endings. I might come back to this one again.
This is just all around lovely! Fun title and nice set-up. I always like potion-crafting in games, and the graphics are great, though the more cartoony sprites stand out a bit against the style of the backgrounds. However, neither style is bad. I love the fact that it's set on a floating island, and the protagonist is cute. And the audio is one of the best I've heard in an LD game.
The one thing that brings it down a bit for me is that some of the jumps are way too hard. Most of them only needed practice, but having to do diagonal jumps on the lily-pads almost made me ragequit. Other than that, the game world is very well-designed.
So great premise, great mood, great graphics/music, lots of ingredients. What's not to like?
Fun thing I noticed (spoiler-spaced for your convenience):
The final jumping sequence had me stumped, until I found out that you could place bounce-mushrooms on top of one another.
Oh man, I'm laughing now. This is one of the funniest entries I've played this LD, and I'd be surprised if I find many that are funnier. Once or twice it seemed to be trying a bit too hard to be funny, but the remaining 99% of the time it worked. You have a very self-assured and enjoyable narrative voice here.
Gameplay-wise, it's a pretty standard Choose Your Own Adventure Story (though I like the system of always having two options, going with the theme). All the branches I played were pretty short, but they had enough detail and didn't feel rushed. I just love the storylines, plain and simple: they put me in the centre of a tongue-in-cheek pulp SF story full of dangers and wonders.
I found three endings, and will definitely come back for more after the compo. My favourite was the Dimension of Unknowable Terror ending.
To sum up: gameplay is nothing special, but the writing and humour are top-notch, and the storylines are a lot of fun. You should probably make an entry for it on the Interactive Fiction Database; it deserves saving for posterity.
Very professionally made. The clouds are a bit too square for my taste, and the styles of some sprites don't really seem to match, but apart from that, the graphics are very good. So is the sound, even if it starts to grate after a while. Most importantly, gameplay is simple, fun and pretty addictive. The powerups add a nice bit of variety.
I like what happens when you die.
First game I played this LD. Hope they're all this good!
Great storyline, and the graphics are mostly good (if a bit uneven; for example, I love the protagonist sprite and the sun and moon, but the tree in the first level looks pretty clumsy). Good animation on the mage sprite. The music is very good.
It all felt a bit unpolished, though. Might benefit from a post-comp version. In particular, I think that having limitless jump in a game about climbing upwards defeats the purpose.
The writing is nice and evocative, but there are a couple of grammar mistakes (for example, "What can I made of this frozen sapling?" should be "make").
I'm probably sounding more negative than I intend to. Just remove limitless jump and polish up some of the graphics and this will be a very good game.
The two character sprites are excellent, and I love the title of the game. Unfortunately, navigating both characters was too difficult for me. Cool concept, though.
Extremely polished entry given the time limit. The gameplay is pretty typical puzzle-platformer fare, though the oxygen mechanic adds a nice bit of tension. It got quite hard, and the controls didn't help, but you kept the difficulty balanced.
The graphics are good, though the protagonist's design seemed a bit odd. I actually assumed they were an alien, until I saw the ending.
The writing is pretty good, though some of the narration at the start was missing punctuation. Also, the font seemed a bit... unsuited to the visuals? A bit too thin? That's a tiny nitpick.
Highly recommended for everyone!
Spoilers below
The ending scene is what made this game stand head and shoulders above all other "escape the ancient ruins" platformers. Beautifully drawn, a nice horrific twist to the story, and also really, really funny. I love this game now.
I've seen this plot done before, but it's still pretty good in terms of horror, and you've created a nice sense of mood with the darkness and limited vision. A problem with the graphics: sometimes I would see a lit area at the back edge of the screen (i.e. the direction my character wasn't facing). Other than that, the game looks pretty good.
Good music, though the intro tune felt a bit too upbeat for a horror game. I'm a bit unsure about the voices, though: the distortion was a bit over the top.
The jumping felt a bit stiff. Other than that, a pretty good game.
The "trapped in a mysterious research facility" genre is pretty old by now, and this game doesn't really add much new to it. (I realise the irony of me saying this, since my own entry is about being trapped in a research facility.) That said, the level design seems good, and the graphics are good-looking, if very sparse. The writing is good, though I caught a couple of grammar mistakes (for example "your" when it should say "you're").
The main problem is that it's just too punishingly hard. I would have liked some sort of checkpoint feature every time you entered a new room.
Nice ending.
Forgot to mention: would be great to have a sound or some other effect to tell you when you've pressed a button.
Graphics: wow, this is what the five-star rating was made for! The dragon sprite looks wonderful. Great music and sound.
Pretty original premise (starting as an egg and growing as you get hurt), but once my dragon was hatched, it kind of turned into a "Flappy Bird" clone. Still, it controls well.
tl;dr: I'm not too fond of the gameplay, but everything else is great, and the concept is fairly original.
Now this is just superlative. Games where you control two characters to solve puzzles have been done before, but this is excellent in terms of graphics, audio and mood. I particularly like the way you've done the women's dresses: simple, but it looks like real cloth. And the starry night visibly rising up from the bottom of the screen looks beautiful. Good use of both themes.
Challenging, but I toughed it out until I made it home.
Couple of bugs: at one point, moving the levels up and down caused some gaps between the levels. Also, there was an occasional bug where a character could stand in front of a door without entering it, which confused me a bit (for a while I thought that only one of the women could enter a specific door).
A longer post-comp version with more puzzles would be great! This is excellent as it stands, however.
One of the best entries I've played so far. Thank you for making this.
@kaa: You're probably right that the doors thing wasn't a bug. Possibly the character wasn't in the right position to enter the door.
Nice game: very good graphics, great audio, polished gameplay. Enough complexity to make it challenging, but it's very well balanced: I never felt that you were throwing difficulty at the player just for the sake of it.
Unfortunately, my keyboard configuration meant that using the controls was a pain, making the game a lot more difficult than it would have been otherwise. But I'm not going to hold it against you, since you didn't code with it in mind.
In short, a pretty simple but good game. The ending was short, but still gave a nice sense of closure.
Ultra-simple gameplay, but still pretty addictive. The graphics are pretty good, though the "start" and "retry" buttons looked out of place and could have been given a look that fitted the gameplay better. I like the Death Star in the title screen.
Very small game, but a decent way to kill some time. And droids.
The title is easily the best I've seen this LD.
The graphics are pretty nice. I like the fact that you can customise your character. Sounds are good as well. Not much in terms of gameplay, but as a simulator, it worked really well. Some of the simulation features may have been a bit simplified (for example, it might have been nice if staying up very late resulted in you waking up later the next morning), but that's kind of a necessity in this type of game.
So yeah, I enjoyed this a lot. It gave me a break from life and maybe made me think about new things.
Spoilers below:
I felt a real thrill once I realised that I could go right from my house; very immersive. And once I was nearing the end on my masterpiece, I stayed up way past "bedtime" to finish it. Again, felt very much like something I'd do in real life.
Good music, and the game is pretty innovative. Good learning curve. Not really my type of game, though.
Great music and pretty nice visuals, but the central point/joke, funny as it is, didn't feel like it merited all the build-up. And other people have made the joke before.
Agree with the person who said that there should be a way to skip the intro.
Pretty original concept, and I like how you fitted the poems into the storyline. It felt a bit dull at times, though, and especially at the start it felt like trial and error. The graphics are good, though the leafage of the tree looks a bit cluttered. Beautiful ending.
Note: the graphics didn't work when I played it in Firefox. Worked fine in Chrome, though.
Nicely imaginative, and I like your use of the theme, but the writing is a bit sparse (not bad, just plain), and there isn't a lot to the gameplay, other than remembering where you've already been. On the other hand, I respect you for not putting in a bunch of decisions that result in instant death.
Short and simple, but I enjoyed it.
Original concept, and great graphics and music. I liked the background details, like the flock of birds. Raising increasingly more of the island from the depths felt great. The "tap to jump" controls felt like an artificially imposed difficulty, though. (Admittedly, without it the game might have been way too easy.) Another nitpick is that the death sound effect is a bit too loud.
I like how you put in respawn points, though towards the end (the jumping section with two monsters at the end) I would have liked a few more.
Those nitpicks aside, it's a very attractive game with a pretty innovative idea.
I love horror, and this is really well written. The only minor nitpick I have to make is that there's a bit too much space devoted to talking about Ella; on the one hand, we get a good sense of her character, but on the other hand, it feels a bit disproportionate in such a short story. But like I said, that's minor.
Also, in some places, it feels like the links don't make it very clear what action the protagonist will take. That made it a bit hard to go for a different route when replaying.
But those very small problems aside, this is a good, understated body-horror story with a very nice amount of branching. I enjoyed playing!
Heh! Not much to say about this without spoiling it for everyone else. I feel foolish, but in a nice way. The writing is good (though I caught a typo: "roon" should be "room").
Not much to it in terms of gameplay, but it's an entertaining story, and wouldn't work nearly as well in a non-interactive format.
(score refers to the original version)
The graphics are good and the music is absolutely brilliant. The character reminds me of Omsk Bird. Gameplay is standard fighting game fare, and took a while for me to get into, but seems to work. Unfortunately, I got a "target scene missing" screen, and had to close the window and start again to be able to play.
The backstory is kind of entertaining, but doesn't seem to have a lot to do with the actual game.
I tried the updated link as well. The various upgrades are cool, but I can't figure out how to proceed from there.
You've got the start of a good and cool-looking game here, it just needs a lot more stuff.
(review of post-jam update) I love that you did the graphics by hand, though I'm not too fond of the style. Great humour (I love how all the lies I saw were really nice and innocent), and the physics work is good. However, the controls were just too frustratingly hard for me.
Fairly original concept, and I like the graphics (especially the sprites, and the very satisfying blast effect when you kill them). However, the actual gameplay didn't really grab me. It felt a bit too static. The sound is very nice, though the sound effects are a bit too loud compared to the music.
A weird bug: when I try opening the "web" link in a new window, the game shows up far too big to fit in one screen. (Playing the hotlinked version works fine, though it's very small.)
You've made a demo that's better than any of my full games. The graphics are lovely, though the main character sprite might need some work, and the shake effect gets a bit too much. I love the background music; reminds me of "La-Mulana"'s soundtrack. However, the sound effects are a bit too loud.
The world design is pretty great. Unfortunately, the controls made it too hard for me. Still, very good-looking game with a cool concept.
I laughed a lot. Great concept, great retro graphics. The title is neat, and the writing is very funny. I'd love to see a post-comp version with all the extra content you mentioned.
Unfortunately, while I enjoyed this a lot, it loses some points for having only very slight game content, and I'm not sure what LD's policy is on using copyrighted music.
In short, as a game: very slight. As a Flash video/tribute to nostalgic awesomeness? Great!
Okay, the grammar... needs work. If you're not a native English speaker, I can understand, but if so, you should probably get a native beta reader in the future.
Other than that, there isn't much here. I've played and enjoyed interactive stories this LD, but the story here is so simple, I'm essentially only clicking to get to the next part. However, the story is pretty cute and has some funny moments. There are places where I can tell that the writing would be good if the grammar got fixed. The cover art is nice, too.
The scrolling text is neat, but got boring after a while. I feel I would have had more patience if the story were just presented in non-animated blocks.
I don't want to sound too critical. Like I said, the idea is sweet, and there is some good comedy. You definitely have potential. Just, for the future, have a look at the grammar (or get a beta reader), and focus on making something with more player input.
Pretty nice retro graphics (brought back good memories of playing "Gauntlet" as a kid), and the music is excellent. I can tell a lot of work and polish went into this, from the procedurally generated levels to the scorecard at the end of each level. Combat is simple, but works.
The connection to the themes didn't feel strong.
My main problem is that it was too hard: I lost a lot of health killing one slime, and there doesn't seem to be any way to regain health other than levelling up. Could just be that I was bad at fighting.
This is a nice twist on sidescrolling space-shooters, and I'm not even normally a fan of that genre. The graphics are great, the SFX are appealing, and the growth mechanic adds a bit of a difficulty increase. I also felt that you put in a bit of leeway in whether or not your little star-to-be hits something, not the usual "touch something and you die".
Would be nice if you could restart by pressing a button instead of clicking the option. Also, a small problem that might need fixing: it's possible to get knocked back until you're almost off the edge of the screen. Those minor problems aside, this is a very neat and professional game.
This is just too hard for words. I almost got the hang on it, but even so I can't get very far.
Still, funny graphics, good audio, and good use of the theme. Could this be the next generation's QWOP?
Good graphics and mood, excellent retro-style music. I like how you implemented the two buttons theme, and there's some good humour. On the downside, having the game jump from side-scroller to set-piece fights feels a bit disjointed.
The text has some grammar and spelling errors. Might need beta-reading.
It's pretty hard, but not unfairly so. I might come back to see if I can beat it later.
Good RPG, though it gets a bit samey. The graphics are good (especially the enemies' death animations), there is some good music, and the combat is simple but tense and fulfilling. I'm impressed that this was done in 48 hours.
A possible bug: if I bought the key and then went back into a town to stock up on health, the gate no longer showed up.
Still haven't beaten the boss (the big mage with the fireball). I might come back and try again later.
That was fun and educational! Never thought I'd say that. Well implemented and with a generous learning curve. The music is excellent, and the graphics are good, even though there's not a lot of them. One of the more original uses of the theme. Definitely a game I'd recommend to anyone wishing to learn/brush up on binary.
Not something you'll play for ages, but a good, well-polished time waster.
Great graphics (especially for the time limit) and audio, and the gameplay is pretty original (like a visual novel with quicktime events). Loads of mood. Unfortunately, it loses a bit on the fun factor because so many choices lead to insta-death, and the right option isn't always that easy to figure out. Still, that's realistic for the story. I played to three different endings and had a good time.
Best of luck with the post-compo version; you're off to a great start. I suggest adding a save feature.
I like how you set it up so that any key on either side of the keyboard could be used to turn, and the growth effect was well implemented. Pretty funny description, too. The game itself was fun for a while, but ultimately there just wasn't a lot there.
Isn't an owl friend what we all need? Kind of simply written, but it's a great concept and a good story. Nice fit with both themes without feeling forced. Plus cute art and a suitable colour scheme.
SPOILER
I like how both endings were very happy. I mean, there's much to be said for tragedy, but let's face it, sometimes we just need an undiluted sweet story to keep going.
Pretty good for your first game! Pretty good graphics (I particularly like the PC and the background), entertaining tune. Gameplay is pretty much your average platformer with some puzzle elements, but the controls work (could do with less float when jumping) and the ending was pretty funny.
Unfortunately, I'm no good at this type of game. The graphics are pretty nice, and the background music is good. The writing isn't bad, but has some grammar mistakes. The gameplay idea isn't incredibly original, but still pretty interesting. I like that you took the time to implement a tutorial.
I just didn't get far enough into the game to say much about it.
As soon as I heard about this game, I knew I had to play it, because I actually had a similar idea for my entry (though I ended up not going with it). I haven't played "Rape, Pillage, Galore" or the Makane games (though I know about them).
So I love the concept, and the intentionally sucky mediaeval-style writing is pretty good. The sex and violence is too far removed from reality to feel offensive. The story is entertaining in its awfulness, and the endings are great.
No real flaws, but it did seem to be missing... something? I would have liked if your actions affected the plot a bit more, or if there were a little bit more complexity to it. (I did notice that SPOILER in the scene with the king and queen, the text changed depending on whether you slew or laid the princess. END SPOILER) That said, maybe complexity is exactly the wrong thing to ask from a game about slaying and laying things. Anyway, when my biggest problem is "I wanted more", that's not a huge criticism.
I like the title screen, too.
A pretty simple story, like a children's fairytale, but pretty emotionally powerful nevertheless. The Twine implementation is good. I played twice until I got a winning ending.
A problem is that there are quite a lot of grammar mistakes. I don't really like to complain about that, since I realise you wrote this in Spanish originally, but it's still an issue. (If you want, I can go through it and tell you what needs fixing.) Another problem is that it's difficult to figure out what the various decisions will lead to, which isn't a good thing in a choice-based game; it means that success will depend on dumb luck rather than informed decisions. For example (slight spoilers ahead): the first time I played, I was brought back to the village by the forester, the second time I was able to escape from him, but I don't actually know what I did differently the second time.
Anyway, like I said, it's a pretty good story, and you're good at Twine. Keep writing and making games; you've got potential.
A nice little runner, with good graphics (the animals in the herd are a bit too cartoonish and colourful, in my opinion, but Moo and the background graphics are great) and excellent audio. The plot is kind of cheesy, but the gameplay is very good. I think this game could be a hit with kids.
I'd like it if the rabbits ran after you rather than hovering (the birds hovering makes sense, after all). Also, a bug: some of the animals appear to be invisible.
I can't really figure out how to win (if I try to ran fast, I don't collect enough animals, while if I backtrack, I lose Moo). Still, one of the most enjoyable games this LD in terms of gameplay.
Lovely game! I'll probably need to come back and play this again just for fun, since I couldn't give it a massive amount of time right now. The graphics are professional, the mechanics are very easy to learn, and the advice spouted by the gurus is absolutely hilarious. Just plain fun.
My only nitpick is that your success or failure depended a lot on the random appearance of the cards, but then, that's kind of hard to avoid in a game like this.
One of the funniest and sleekest LD entries I've played. Hope you score high.
Nice controls and a nice challenge. I like the graphics, minimalist as they are. The music is outstanding, simply a joy to listen to.
Would have been fun if there were a little more to the game (for example, some way to die other than running out of bullets).
Very impressive for such a short time period.