clever game, atmosphere is top notch, i felt some of the puzzles were a bit too cryptic, liked the alchemists personality, this game had a lot of style. Wouldn't have gotten the Newton puzzle without comments.
This was fun! I made it to the 'good' ending after a couple tries to figure it out. + The music is nice, and the voice-acted sounds are entertaining. The mandrake jumpscared me, though. + The light colour mechanic is a real neat concept + Puzzles are compelling, and build upon the setting
- The light colour mechanic is not communicated very well. On my first playthrough, I didn't even realise that the settings had that option. - Spamming left click on every object is optimal, which dampened the experience somewhat. - I want my legendary bread.
The general concept is fine, but I think the game would benefit a lot from some quality-of-life tweaks. In particular, adding extra highlight to items hovered over would help a lot (might be limited to a certain distance within the candle). Also, I had trouble grabbing the books for some reason, taking away some of my precious candle time. Finally, I'd much prefer if colour options were integrated with the game UI, rather than staying hidden away in the settings.
Unless you deliberately aim for a meta-screwy gameplay, the interaction options available to the player should be properly discoverable (and if you do aim for meta-screwy gameplay, it doesn't count until you need to edit a save file somewhere, I suppose 🙃).
I feel the game needs to provide a few more hints than what it currently does; in particular, the numbers on the books where an anti-hint since they didn't really matter at all, and it wasn't clear to me I needed to spell out the name of the person on the portrait. On that note, did you know that "Son Winter" is one of valid anagrams?
I really like the art and the voicelines were a nice touch too. I feel if the mechanics were polished a bit - and maybe there would be no candle extinguishing altogether (some could be used to measure hours) - the game could become quite approachable for casual players, which going by GDD seem to be one of intended audiences.
You are absolutely right about the UI being hidden, and my plan is to have a shortcut key to directly change between the three main colours, for a faster swap and a clearer view of what appears/disappear on screen. It's also aready planned a change for the candles as I have received many feedback about them being very short timed, and to help the players even more I'll implement some kind of more specific hint for each puzzle.
I really appreciate you taking your time to give me your feedback and ideas for the candles, I'll think about it, anyways thank you :)
An absolutely beautifully crafted game full of style and voice acting!
I just wish I didn't have such a hard time playing it. Accidentally lighting multiple candles then watching them all burn out as I frantically try to solve puzzles was a nightmare. Then having to play in incognito mode to reset the progress to get the candles back was a pain. I know it's a jam game and these things happen so it wasn't a huge deal.
I swear those candles burn out faster than 60 seconds but I even timed and and for sure they do I guess when you're under stress trying to figure out what to do 60 seconds suddenly feels like such a short time!
I have to admit the puzzles were kinda difficult. (Spoilers to anyone who hasn't played the game yet!). The first puzzle being "Sir Newton" requires outside knowledge from the game to know that 1. He was knighted as a Sir and 2. His surname is Newton. I know this is fairly common knowledge and I was able to solve it but others might not have such a easy time with it. I also think the numbers on the books gives it an extra level of confusion that maybe wasn't needed.
I got as far as the garden/greenhouse. I understood that I had to change the colour of my light but having it hidden way in the settings menu seems like a really bad choice in my opinion. The only reason I knew that option was there was because I opened the settings the first time I played the game and saw it and thought "ooh that's a nice accessibility feature" until I realised it was a game mechanic.
I could not pass the garden. I changed my light to every possible colour I could and clicked everywhere I could to try and find the ingredients. I found 2 sets of them in the pots and on the vine stalks that appear but I could not find the last one and eventually when all my candles burned out I just gave up because I couldn't be bothered starting again.
The mechanics are fantastic I just wish they were easier to access and understand and the stress of having to juggle my burning out supply of candles didn't really help.
Anyways the art and style is fantastic it's all very well drawn and reads extremely well the choice of simple black and white makes it very easy to understand what I'm looking at (as long as there's light) and the little collectables were cute.
The audio design is fantastic, the music and SFX are great and the voice acting was a really nice and well done surprise. I was genuinely surprised when I heard it because I think it's the first game in the gamejam I've come across where someone has gone to that effort. Great job.
Overall I enjoyed the game but a number of frustrations and issues stopped me from finishing it. I would like to return to the game if these are solved in the future as it was a great game that just wore down my patience. Please keep working on it :)
Nice game, I managed to finish the first and third levels alone, the ambience is really good, the dark rooms with that calm music. I also really like how you integrated the options in the gameplay :D
pretty hard game , art is good and narration is good, i think i solved the first clue with the use of your trailer but its pretty hard to figure that out but nothing triggered not sure what the mouse does, some more tips would be nice
For the first patch I am going to give some specific hints inside the game after some time passes, so everyone can go on, anyway I appreciate the feedback !
Loved the art and interacting with objects. Finding secret candles everywhere was a ton of fun and felt very rewarding. I did need the hint in the game page description to get past the the book puzzle and I ended up stuck in the passing room. Shortly after entering and exploring the room I ended up "softlocked" out of candles like you mention in the game page because of so many restarts trying to figure out the book puzzle initially. Instead of trying the incognito method, I decided to call it there.
Thank you for your feedback, my plan for the next update is to give some specific hints inside the game after some time passes, so even someone who don't usually play this kind of games can progress.
You have a cool art, also voice lines are cool, you even added voice lines when clicking on specific elements.
However, finding little object in the dark, while the light source is also limited is a bit much for me.
I read your gdd and was surprised to see shadowgate wasn't an inspiration for your game. I think you'll like it, seeing your game is also a point and click limited by light source
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clever game, atmosphere is top notch, i felt some of the puzzles were a bit too cryptic, liked the alchemists personality, this game had a lot of style. Wouldn't have gotten the Newton puzzle without comments.
This was fun! I made it to the 'good' ending after a couple tries to figure it out.
+ The music is nice, and the voice-acted sounds are entertaining. The mandrake jumpscared me, though.
+ The light colour mechanic is a real neat concept
+ Puzzles are compelling, and build upon the setting
- The light colour mechanic is not communicated very well. On my first playthrough, I didn't even realise that the settings had that option.
- Spamming left click on every object is optimal, which dampened the experience somewhat.
- I want my legendary bread.
Thank you for playing, and GG on finding all the items
I plan to give a shortcut key to swap between colors, as soon as the jam ends I will apply a series of "quality of life" upgrades to the demo.
(The legendary bread is Pizza Marinara and I plan to give the player an optional quest to cook it :) )
I'm more of a margherita man, myself.
The general concept is fine, but I think the game would benefit a lot from some quality-of-life tweaks. In particular, adding extra highlight to items hovered over would help a lot (might be limited to a certain distance within the candle). Also, I had trouble grabbing the books for some reason, taking away some of my precious candle time. Finally, I'd much prefer if colour options were integrated with the game UI, rather than staying hidden away in the settings.
Unless you deliberately aim for a meta-screwy gameplay, the interaction options available to the player should be properly discoverable (and if you do aim for meta-screwy gameplay, it doesn't count until you need to edit a save file somewhere, I suppose 🙃).
I feel the game needs to provide a few more hints than what it currently does; in particular, the numbers on the books where an anti-hint since they didn't really matter at all, and it wasn't clear to me I needed to spell out the name of the person on the portrait. On that note, did you know that "Son Winter" is one of valid anagrams?
I really like the art and the voicelines were a nice touch too. I feel if the mechanics were polished a bit - and maybe there would be no candle extinguishing altogether (some could be used to measure hours) - the game could become quite approachable for casual players, which going by GDD seem to be one of intended audiences.
You are absolutely right about the UI being hidden, and my plan is to have a shortcut key to directly change between the three main colours, for a faster swap and a clearer view of what appears/disappear on screen. It's also aready planned a change for the candles as I have received many feedback about them being very short timed, and to help the players even more I'll implement some kind of more specific hint for each puzzle.
I really appreciate you taking your time to give me your feedback and ideas for the candles, I'll think about it, anyways thank you :)
An absolutely beautifully crafted game full of style and voice acting!
I just wish I didn't have such a hard time playing it. Accidentally lighting multiple candles then watching them all burn out as I frantically try to solve puzzles was a nightmare. Then having to play in incognito mode to reset the progress to get the candles back was a pain. I know it's a jam game and these things happen so it wasn't a huge deal.
I swear those candles burn out faster than 60 seconds but I even timed and and for sure they do I guess when you're under stress trying to figure out what to do 60 seconds suddenly feels like such a short time!
I have to admit the puzzles were kinda difficult. (Spoilers to anyone who hasn't played the game yet!). The first puzzle being "Sir Newton" requires outside knowledge from the game to know that 1. He was knighted as a Sir and 2. His surname is Newton. I know this is fairly common knowledge and I was able to solve it but others might not have such a easy time with it. I also think the numbers on the books gives it an extra level of confusion that maybe wasn't needed.
I got as far as the garden/greenhouse. I understood that I had to change the colour of my light but having it hidden way in the settings menu seems like a really bad choice in my opinion. The only reason I knew that option was there was because I opened the settings the first time I played the game and saw it and thought "ooh that's a nice accessibility feature" until I realised it was a game mechanic.
I could not pass the garden. I changed my light to every possible colour I could and clicked everywhere I could to try and find the ingredients. I found 2 sets of them in the pots and on the vine stalks that appear but I could not find the last one and eventually when all my candles burned out I just gave up because I couldn't be bothered starting again.
The mechanics are fantastic I just wish they were easier to access and understand and the stress of having to juggle my burning out supply of candles didn't really help.
Anyways the art and style is fantastic it's all very well drawn and reads extremely well the choice of simple black and white makes it very easy to understand what I'm looking at (as long as there's light) and the little collectables were cute.
The audio design is fantastic, the music and SFX are great and the voice acting was a really nice and well done surprise. I was genuinely surprised when I heard it because I think it's the first game in the gamejam I've come across where someone has gone to that effort. Great job.
Overall I enjoyed the game but a number of frustrations and issues stopped me from finishing it. I would like to return to the game if these are solved in the future as it was a great game that just wore down my patience. Please keep working on it :)
Nice game, I managed to finish the first and third levels alone, the ambience is really good, the dark rooms with that calm music. I also really like how you integrated the options in the gameplay :D
pretty hard game , art is good and narration is good, i think i solved the first clue with the use of your trailer but its pretty hard to figure that out but nothing triggered not sure what the mouse does, some more tips would be nice
Thank you for playing !
For the first patch I am going to give some specific hints inside the game after some time passes, so everyone can go on, anyway I appreciate the feedback !
Loved the art and interacting with objects. Finding secret candles everywhere was a ton of fun and felt very rewarding. I did need the hint in the game page description to get past the the book puzzle and I ended up stuck in the passing room. Shortly after entering and exploring the room I ended up "softlocked" out of candles like you mention in the game page because of so many restarts trying to figure out the book puzzle initially. Instead of trying the incognito method, I decided to call it there.
Very cool start. I hope you end up continuing it!
Thank you for your feedback, my plan for the next update is to give some specific hints inside the game after some time passes, so even someone who don't usually play this kind of games can progress.
You have a cool art, also voice lines are cool, you even added voice lines when clicking on specific elements.
However, finding little object in the dark, while the light source is also limited is a bit much for me.
I read your gdd and was surprised to see shadowgate wasn't an inspiration for your game. I think you'll like it, seeing your game is also a point and click limited by light source
Thank you for taking you time to give me your feedback !
I didn't knew about shadowgate, I will watch right now.